Annotations for Speaker: Participant

I consent to being interviewed and audio recorded for this survey.

I would say, [COMMUNITY NAME] is a like a suburb of [NORTH TEXAS CITY]. It's got 15,000 population, it's a small town. And it it's a a friendly town.

It has grown from 1500 people when I was little to 15,000 people now. So it's grown quite a bit. But entertainment wise, it hasn't changed.

Its people. [COMMUNITY NAME] will help its own people, they help other people, you know, people that are in need, and that's one of the best things that you can ask for in a community.

Yeah, oh, yeah. Like any other city [COMMUNITY NAME] is going to have its share of crime, and it's going to have its share of drugs. You know, that's going to be a weakness you'll find no matter where you go.

Asolutely. That's why I moved back here when I got out of the military. I never found a place... I found places I liked better during the summer, but not the winter and places better than the winter, but not the summer, but no place better year round. In the short time I lived in [NORTH TEXAS CITY]. I just really didn't feel like that's where I needed to be. That's when it came back to [COMMUNITY NAME].

Now or when I was-?

When I was it, it was the fact that you could go anywhere, you didn't have to worry about being safe or anything. We had the lake, so you can always go swimming. Most places weren't that far from one part of the lake. So you're always close to it. And pretty much everybody knew everybody back then.

Yes. It's getting to the point to where somebody moves in next door to you, and it's like you're living in an apartment. They don't want to know their who their neighbors are. On the street I live on, we used to know everybody on the street. Now the only people we know are the ones that are at our end of the street.

Nothing, I'm retired, I just do I do a little tree cutting clearing land for people. I'm about to retire from doing that and just maintaining the property at our church and working with [LOCAL CHARITY], which is, as you know, an organization where we help people that can't afford to have things done at their homes, they're disabled or you know, they have some kind of health issues or financial issues and they need necessary repairs, just to maintain a halfway decent standard of living. And that's where we come in. We get the people, we get the businesses that'll contribute to it, and we get it done for them and it doesn't cost them a dime. So I work with that now.

Oh, yes, I was a mailman for 31 years and I spent 26 years in the Air Force.

No, I carried mail out of [NORTH TEXAS CITY].

I never carried here in [COMMUNITY NAME]. So I didn't, I didn't have home and work in the same place.

I think so. I think that's really helped me. Because growing up here, it's a way for me to give back to the community I grew up in. And, you know, I really believe in being able to give, give back to the community.

Oh, gosh, probably seven or eight years ago, we've had 14 or 15 [SEMI-ANNUAL CHARITY EVENTS]. That's two a year, and my wife and I started working with [CHARITY FOUNDER], before the first [SEMI- ANNUAL CHARITY EVENT]. So we've been here a long time.

We had a parishioner at our church that needed a wheelchair ramp. And [CHARITY FOUNDER] and [LOCAL CHARITY] was just getting off the ground. And that was one of their earliest jobs that they did. We didn't even know she needed it in our church, because she was so private and everything about it. We didn't know about it until they showed it in the [COMMUNITY] paper. Right before she was killed by somebody that she was renting the room to. And that's what got us involved because it was somebody we knew that needed help, and we didn't even know about it. And we met [CHARITY FOUNDER] at her funeral. And we've been with him working with him ever since.

[LAUGHS] I don't know if there is one. [LAUGHS] typical workday is going to be people come by with donations that they want to drop off: refrigerators, stoves, furniture, whatever, lumber. And like you just saw when we took our short break, they bring back mattresses and tools and stuff that aren't needed. Well, we can use all that kind of stuff. And we acted pretty much as the middleman between people wanting to get rid of gently used stuff, and people who are in need of it. You know, we can we get it from one and we find the other and give it to them, we don't take stuff that needs to go in a dumpster. You know, just stuff that we wouldn't have a problem with using ourselves. And then we do we'll have somebody come by that. Maybe they need some lumber or something if we happen to have it. Okay. We don't mind, we'll share it with them we don't mind giving it to them. We don't sell anything. What we do is we give and we receive. That's the one of the one one of the really big things I really love about [LOCAL CHARITY].

Helping people it's plain and simple. You know, people. At some point, I'm going to end up needing help. I'm getting pretty old. So and I... as [COWORKER'S] son always says when we have our [SEMI- ANNUAL CHAIRTY EVENTS]. Yeah, we're going to be in that position one day, well, we may need somebody helping us. So we're basically just paying it forward. We'll we'll help them and then later, it'll be our turn.

Ah, well, because of my health, there's a lot of stuff I would like to do that I'm not allowed to do anymore. So for me, that's a challenge because I'm not used to being sidelined. I'm used to being able to get out there and do it if it needs to be done. So I guess the biggest challenges for me are convincing others that I can still do it [LAUGH]

Hi, how can we help ya?

Four being the best? Or?

Okay.

Disagree?

That's a four.

Another four.

To me, They're both equally important.

I think I agree with that.

I put that. I put that on a, I'd say a three. I feel like if you go to another country, they shouldn't be forced to have to learn your language if you're going to their country.

Yeah, uh... yeah, so I'd say a three

No, absolutely disagree.

That's a one. Hmm, I would say probably a four, yeah. I think you can

That's a four.

Of course, the Cowboys.

Since around the 60s. And that's about when I started paying attention to football. They started off in Kansas City. And then they moved to Texas.

No [LAUGHS] It's been a while since they've done good. [LAUGHS] They make the first game of the playoffs and that's it,

Oh, yeah. I had to mow the yard, with a push mower. Not a power mower. But that was probably my main chore. They said it'd build muscles. My parents did. They were wrong. [LAUGHS]

Yeah, yeah I'd say so.

Not really. I didn't care to do chores.

I wanted to play and have fun.

Oh, I have no doubt. I'm sure I got caught more than once [LAUGHS] I was a trouble child

I don't think it's that hard. We're friends aren't we [OTHER PERSON]? We're friends, right? Eh, well... maybe it's harder than I thought [LAUGHS]

Oh yeah. Yeah, I've been caught doing that. Especially my wife.

No... and even if I thought of one, I wouldn't say.

Nah, I think 70s were better.

60s and 70s.

Because that's when I was a teenager. [LAUGHS] And that's what I really liked of music. You know, Beach Boys and Dave Clark Five and a lot of 'em that people have never heard of anymore.

Painless.

Oh

Read out loud or just read it?

Okay, I've lived in Texas all my life. Okay. I was born in Titus County. And when I was five, I moved to a farm near White House, which is southeast of Tyler. I liked growing up in the country. When my chores were done, I'd ride my horse, climb trees or hike down the creek to fish or swim. One time we tied a rope to a limb of a cypress tree and would swing out right over the swimming hole and drop into the water. I'd pretend to be Tarzan swinging on the vine in the spring I'd fly kites, and on summer nights would catch fireflies, but we call them lightning bugs. Once in a while, we'd have fights with corncobs or pinecones. In the winter, we build a fire in the fireplace and pop popcorn and roast peanuts and pecans. I guess I was live wire. When I was 19 I went to work in Dallas at a Firestone Tire store. I didn't like city life. And for a long time I'd go home every chance I got almost would always put my favorite foods: fried okra, hoppin' John. That's rice and black eyed peas and pecan pie. We had lots of good times but going home is not the same now. After daddy died, Mama sold the farm and moved to Tyler. I'd rather be living on a farm right now instead of here in the city. But my wife and kids don't understand me when I grew up about city life and talked about moving to the country. My oldest child says Daddy, that's crazy. I just died if I had to live on a farm. I almost cried the first time she said that. I know Texas is changing. But I try to make sure they don't lose touch with our roots. While we may live in a city, I want my kids to have a good feeling for the land. Have a sense of place and take pride in being Texans. If they lose our ties to the land, the price of progress too high.

I consent to be interviewed and audio recorded for this study. My name is [NAME].  

Uh so my parents uh lived here when I was born. Um [SMACKS LIPS] back in the early, early 60s when they moved here from Houston. And so [SMACKS LIPS] I've lived here, was raised here my entire life. I was born in 1972. So from 1972 to now. I was actually born in Hermann Hospital in Houston, that's where the hospitals were at that time. Still are, basically. But my parents lived, right downtown [COMMUNITY NAME]. That's where I was born and raised, basically.

Was raised here, yup. 

Yeah, yeah. Especially if, if you're talking with with a lot of the uh [COMMUNITY NEIGHBORHOOD NAME] Members and stuff like that, because they're all new. Um [SMACKS LIPS] You have to get downtown to kind of find some of the old locals that have uh you know, a lot have lived here a lot longer than I have, 

Yeah um my kids' bus driver, who is a nice, beautiful lady that raised in [COMMUNITY NAME] all her life to, she lives downtown. Um so there's a lot of people that have been here a long time. But, it's a great community. 

So [COMMUNITY NAME] um, well right now it's one of the fastest growing cities in Texas so if you're describing it now it's uh on a very fast paced growth. Uh a lot of construction, a lot of new build, new um residential um commercials coming not as fast as, you know, residential, but it is coming with rooftops. But a great uh once was more ranch type country community has now become larger scaled uh subdivision um multifamily uh type uh establishments um. [SMACKS LIPS] It's on the outskirts of [COMMUNITY NAME], which is a great place to be, especially on the west side, very uhfluent, and very prosperous community that's very well educated. And um it's just uh just a friendly, friendly atmosphere to raise a family in. It's very safe, one of the safest places in Texas, they have great Police Department, uh great presence uh with them. And so that's a very plus for community to raise a family in. Just a great town where people grew up knowing each other and looking after each other. Back in the day, we didn't have police departments,  

So your protection was your neighbor. And so everybody kind of grew up looking after each other's property, if you were out of town, or if a car pulled up in someone's driveway that you didn't recognize you just had no problem picking up the phone and saying, "hey, you know, everything, okay? Are you home?" or stuff like that. So it was a community that leaned on each other a whole lot um for anything from, you know, helping build something to needing money loans to, you know, whatever it might be babysitting, or just, you know, lending the hand wherever you could. That's what this community uh was always known for. Uh pretty much still is. Um it's it's that small town atmosphere that people like to uh be reminded of of why community is, is done so well. Because you in the police department, and the city does a great job on the National Night Out to uh push and promote for people to get out and meet your neighbors because that's, that's what it's all about. You want to know who's living next to you and just have that uh ability to communicate and look after each other. 

Yeah. 

Well that, that would be the growth in the population Um [SMACKS LIPS] growing up, [COMMUNITY NAME], when I was being raised, we had two kind of grocery store type meat markets, which was Dozier's and Myers Meat Market downtown. Um we had three gas stations, we had a Gulf, Texaco, and Exxon. And um [SMACKS LIPS], we had one blinking light, which was a stoplight, which is the, basically the main intersection at [INTERSECTION NAME] and that was the only traffic light, per se, and it was just a blinking light. Um [SMACKS LIPS] You pretty much knew, when you were in the store, or if you were, as kids, we sat on the front porch of the store all the time, on the summer, you're just kind of bored.

So you just kind of sit there and watch the cars go by, you know. But pretty much everybody knew who you were, or you knew who they were, when you saw him coming in now the stores. So very close, uh well known community of people that knew families for generations, because families lived here for generations, and they didn't move away. There, they stayed here, their kids grew up here, their kids, you know, started raising their families here. And so there wasn't a whole lot of change in in the dynamics of um very equal in race, it was black, white, and Hispanic, primarily, can't say we had any other um Asian or any other type of ethnicity that was really present in the community at that time. Um and everybody got along very well, regardless of race, economic background, or um just jobs or anything like that um so that was back then, now it's a little bit um, you know, a larger population where you have people from all over the world living here. Um back then, you know, it would be odd to hear somebody that was from a different country. You know, you're born in Texas, you raised in Texas, this is where they basically live. So uh very diverse, more of a city now. Um which is a good thing. And um so the population, you I can I can sit in a restaurant downtown or store and used to be able to know people when they walked in, and they would know you. And I could go now and not know a single person in the store or restaurant, which is not a bad thing. It's just, it's how things have changed. So when you do see someone you do know from you know, um it's always a friendly hello. And so it's it's getting to know new people that live here. Um I like to [SMACKS LIPS] hear people talk and when they're in restaurants and stuff like that, and then ask them, I like to ask questions like, Where are you from? Um I'm always interested in where people come from, you know, what made you decide to move to [COMMUNITY NAME]? And that's the question you'd like to ask people. And they're like, oh, you know, they always want to move out the big city or [OTHER COMMUNITY NAME] or a lot of people come from [OTHER COMMUNITY NAME] You know, they think [OTHER COMMUNITY NAME]'s getting overcrowded, or it's just too much. A lot of times it's the schools, the population of the schools is too big for them and they want um [COMMUNITY NAME] [SCHOOL DISTRICT NAME] school district have smaller um populations uh based on their uh high school levels and junior high levels and they, they did that on purpose. They made smaller schools so uh kids would have more opportunities to join clubs and activities where um your [OTHER COMMUNITY NAME] schools are larger. They're probably about double the size of what [SCHOOL DISTRICT NAME] schools are. And so a lot of people, uh if you're trying out for a club or something like that, and they don't have the opportunity, they will move out. We have a lot of people move out just for sports, to the [COMMUNITY NAME] area just to get away from higher population. So that's changed a lot. Um sort of, you know, you're seeing less uh pastures of uh horses and cows and wildflowers and this is where we're at today. This was all rice fields. Where the city hall sits today this this whole [NEIGHBORHOOD NAME] was nothing but rice fields. And so in the winter, you would have the flocks of geese migrating from Canada becoming a neighbor just inundate these these fields you know, be white with the snow geese and uh nowadays you don't see or even hear 'em anymore because there's nowhere for them to land. It's all populated with rooftop. So they, they find different routes to hit South in the winter. So those things like that It's it's the little things like that. [SMACKS LIPS] You know, the sky is at night back then were dark. And so the stars were bright. And uh we played, [SMACKS LIPS] we played a lot of hide and seek at night,  

Which was one of the games we played a lot of it's called flashlight tag, you know, so everybody go hide and the one person that was it had the flashlight and you had to go around trying to find them and everybody else was trying to run to home base before they got spotted with the flashlight because it was dark. We didn't have streetlights.

So you know how your communities all had street lights now. We didn't have those back then. 

So it was it was different. So when, when you open the door out, and there wasn't a moon, it was dark. And so those things like that, that's, that's the um as a kid to an adult age, the things that I've seen so differently.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So that I mean, that was the thing. You know, we ran all over town. So uh there was a core group of kids that we all kind of grew up downtown or different age levels, but we all played together with artists, you know, somewhere in uh, you know, four or five years older than I was, and some were younger. But we had grown up downtown. My parents and [NAME] were the only two swimming pools in [COMMUNITY NAME] growing up.  

And so we always swam day and night, morning, you know. And um my parents, my parents were very community oriented uh both were uh started out as teachers and did a lot of stuff with community growing up. And so they let anybody and everybody who wanted to come swim, come swim. I mean, it wouldn't be uh unnormal to hear people in the backyard swim in and you open it up, and then it'd be like, like, maybe two, two whole families of Hispanic kids and their families or it could be Black families and their kids or white kids, anything just all, didn't matter. And um [SMACKS LIPS] it was just, just the place to go. People learn to swim. I have people still today, you know. Yeah, I remember, you know. We grew up learning how to swim in your, your parent's backyard. So we did that a lot. We played sports. We didn't have uh [SMACKS LIPS] little league or the little, you know, sports leagues that they have now like soccer and baseball. And so we did it on our own, we played late. We're playing football, we're playing in someone's front yard with the football and we're just playing or baseball. The lot across the street from Dozier's was a horse lot. And that had a sewer ditch that ran kind of three quarters of the way through the middle of it. 

And that was our baseball field. So we played baseball during the baseball season out there and uh, you know, whoever had the baseball would play and then if someone hit the ball and then ended up in the sewer ditch that was the end of the baseball day because no one was going to dig in looking forward. We did that a lot.  

Yeah, we rode bikes everywhere. We had to go karts. Where Saltgrass is now, downtown. That uh was an empty field that we we'd take our lawn mowers and we would mow like a dirt track.

We've had our own little go kart tracks that we ride in there.

It was, it was a fun, fun place to grow up in like you said, parents lead us outside all the time. We didn't get to stay inside and watch TV.  

It's like you're outside playing in the dirt and cars and um my parents, I still have it today when they, when they moved on to the... it's in my front yard in my house. Um when it was time for supper, or dinner um. 

Dinner mostly, some people call it supper. 

Just, just,

Just different words of how well you know, what, you know. Dinner or supper. 

Yeah. 

And I don't, I would be the wrong person to ask, What's the proper way of saying it. [CHUCKLES] You knew it was time to eat when you could smell it. 

Because my parents cooked outside a lot they cook steaks and stuff outside. So grilling you could smell it in town like or uh, my parents had a big uh bell. And they would ring the bell.

And you could hear it all through town, wherever you were, you know, like, as you ring it a couple times, and you're like, Oh, I gotta go, we gotta get everybody, gotta go eat, you know, and we'd go home and eat, hurry up and then we'd go back out and play afterwards. [SMACKS LIPS] But um so you could hear that, that was, that was kind of a neat memory to, to know, the church, the Methodist Church had a church bell that they used to ring in the morning when it was time for church.  

Mm-hmm, so things like that. Of course, we also had train tracks backed into so the train used to come through for sure. It went from basically Eagle Lake all the way into Houston, that was the path of the railroad. And uh so you would hear to train blowing its whistles and stuff like that it was back then we slept with the windows open a lot. We had AC, it's just parents didn't use it as much because of the expense of it. It was a different time. And so that was different, because you heard, you heard the night sounds, the crickets and all that and uh birds in the morning. And so it's those memories, if you kind of look back, and remember, those are the things that you don't get to see or really hear that much of today.

Is your childhood memories, and every, every generation, it's different. Like, you'll have memories from your childhood that when you're older, you're thinking, "Oh, I remember when we did this, or watch this, or you know, on TV or what was on it," It'll be I like, the old days. I like memories of the old days, I like, like the new days and the days of tomorrow. But it's those are fun.  Lot of fun times. And a great childhood. Great, [COMMUNITY NAME] was a great place to raise kids, to be raised in so no, uh you know, only thing back then we were bored sometimes. And we're like, "Man, when we get our driver's license, we're out of here." 

We couldn't wait to get out. And the older you got, um I worked downtown for about 25 years. And it was quite odd how the memory of being young and couldn't wait to get into Houston to when you're older, being in Houston, you couldn't wait to get back home. 

Yeah.

It's different. 

Weakness is always going to be um your infrastructure with the growth and the tech space for um the amount of uh services that are needed with such a fast population growth area. Um and when I was mayor, you'd hear people, not that they complained, I mean, it was just a wish, a wish list of what they wanted. And it's parks. And we all did, we all wanted parks, you know, wanted restaurants, um grocery stores, you know, more convenience stores for them to shop at locally and certainly to drive into town. And same thing with sporting events for Little League Baseball and stuff like that people don't like to have to travel to go to [OTHER COMMUNITY NAME] or [OTHER COMMUNITY NAME] or [OTHER COMMUNITY NAME] or any of those other towns to practice or play games when you wish as a community you could have it here. So those are some of the weaknesses of a very fast paced growth city. It will come it will come you know a little bit slower than what people want. Um but, you know, those are just the some of the pains of a fast growing community. People don't realize what it takes. 

They think oh, city's big. You have a population now, guess what? There's [NAME], [NAME] was one of our attorneys back then, he worked for um [NAME]. 

Mm-hmm. And then so people don't realize what it takes to create those kinds of opportunities that they want for sporting events and stuff like that. They look at the city and they think oh, you got so many people there you should have tons of money, which is not always the case, 

People say, "Oh, you have all those police, giving all those tickets, ya'll making a ton of money." And you have to people like myself at the time, if you're in the know, then sometimes it's your opportunity to educate. Um to let them know that the police department is not a money making device for the city. It's a safety net for the community to be safe. And people really don't realize that [HIGHWAY NAME] is a state highway. It's not a city highway, it's in the city. But when an officer gives a ticket on [HIGHWAY NAME], or [OTHER HIGHWAY NAME], majority of that money goes to the state. So the city gets very little of anything off of a ticket.

So you always have to explain those things to people's like, people back in the days, say [COMMUNITY NAME] was a speed track, you know, used to just give tickets to give tickets, but you know. 

Just those little things like that. Infrastructure, you know, water wells, sewer plants, roads. Um when you when you have uh big major developments, like [NEIGHBORHOOD NAME] and [OTHER NEIGHBORHOOD NAME], [OTHER NEIGHBORHOOD NAME], and it's all curbs, and gutters and concrete and stuff like that, but when you have a once the development game is approved, and everything's correlated over to the city, then those streets and all those infrastructure become property of the city, become the responsibility of the city. And so anytime those fail or have a damage to them, or anything, that's an expense that people don't realize that the city has to take on. It's not something that's cheap, it's not cheap to go have to pour concrete on a road repair or something like that, or a busted curb or something like that. Those things add up. So yeah, it's it's those things that you are a lot of the heartaches of the weaknesses of a fast paced city, but it'll all come together. I mean, in time. It's, I mean, just over, since I've been out of office to now I mean, it's, it's grown tremendously. And look how, look how many employees the city has now like, fear. I mean, it's, it's, it's common, 

Not for me, per se, because we always kind of knew it was coming,

But for a lot of people that knew [COMMUNITY NAME] of the back of your hand, you know just to travel through, you know, lot of people travel through to go to college station or whatever, you know, this was kind of the path people always took from [OTHER COMMUNITY NAME], [OTHER COMMUNITY NAME] very. And uh when people do, you hear a lot when they do uh come out here now it's like, "I don't recognize it." It's grown so much. It's so different. Um, my mom's an elderly lady now, and she doesn't live here anymore but um anytime she does come out here, and she doesn't recognize it. 

It looks totally different. Looking just at [HIGHWAY NAME] now, you know, within a month or two, you can have a different building that's constructed and you're like, 

They weren't there long ago. So yeah, it's different.  

Well, um growing up here, you know, my father was the first mayor. And so um watched a lot of him uh help steer the community growing in its path. Once he got out as mayor, he was mayor later on in his life as well. Um I got on to city council. I loved it. I loved the city that I grew up in, so I wanted to be a voice for um I was asked by a lot of the older townspeople that grew up here as well. They didn't want to be on city council and they wanted me to do it, so I did enjoy that, I was on city council for about six years. And then uh I was asked by those same people to run for mayor as well. So I did. I I've never really looked at anything or done anything for myself for personal reasons. That's that's not who I am. I just kind of do it for the love of the city and for the people. That's what I've always gotten involved with or being on city government, stuff like that. Um [SMACKS LIPS], being in city government, a lot of the changes that occurred with social media that can be a positive and it can be a negative. So those are some of the interesting things about um being in city government at that time. I'm not, I'm not one who wants to argue with anybody, or put people in their place, you know, when they don't know what they're talking about. Um social media, at that time, especially when I was in office was, was kind of used as a weapon.  It was used to attack. And it was a shame because personal vendetta or whatever it might be, people would do, but people would just put out information just to um,

Not really hurt me, but just to kind of stir up others.

Where, you know, people looked at photos, for instance, one was a tree ordinance. 

We wanted to try to save our trees, from being just mowed down and becoming subdivisions and nutrients planted nothing wrong with that, and people are entitled to do and sell the property whatever they choose to. But downtown was an area that had some beautiful old oak trees and the countries that people wanted to kind of preserve. People always wanted to preserve that kind of small town downtown feel. And so there was issues with trying to create a tree ordinance to protect some of the areas. When I bought my property, I live off a boat or it was covered in what is called a Texas thornrose. It is a vine type bush, grows can grow up to like eight feet tall. But it's covered in thorns to learn not just like a rosebush, thorn, it has those long thorns, but multi... many thorns around that. So just walking by or anything it'll grab your shirt it's just like, and so I uh got rid of all that kind of loaded down and brushed it and got rid of all that stuff during that time. And people were taking pictures. Here he, putting stuff out like "Here he is he's anti trees mowing down all these are trees." 

And if I had anything that looked like a tree, I saved that, you know, regardless of what type of tree it might be, but that's kind of stuff there was, there was a lot of negativity and that kind of stuff on social media. So it wasn't, it was that was probably one of the one of the reasons I kind of got out of politics. 

I'm not a politician, because I'm not... I love my community. And so I did what I could to help people that have a voice for their community, but never do anything for myself, personally, no personal goals or games to try to come. But when I started becoming more negative, with social media and stuff, I have a wife and four kids that are more important to me than, you know, than going to school and having someone say, "Hey, I heard this you know about your dad" or something like that, you know, they come home, ask Mom, you know, "What's this about?" Well has your dad ever done that?" They'd go "No", but, you know, people don't ever believe that. You know, so. That was the ugly part of it. I don't think it's uh since [PAST MAYOR NAME]. [PAST MAYOR NAME] asked me if I was going to run at that time, and I said no, I was out. And he asked if he should, I thought he should, I thought he'd be a good Mayor, I said "You're a preacher." And I said "You saw what I went through with people making acquisitions and stuff like that." And I said, "Being a preacher," I said, "I would hope people wouldn't accuse you of uh you know, just nonsense" and so... so it was good for him. I think he did a good job. So it's reasonably good.  

No, it wasn't anything that um it was anything that I actually, you know, set out to do 

Or tried to make happen. Um I just knew that I wanted to help the community, you know. And the people that I grew up knowing. They wanted me to be the voice for them. And so I had no problem doing that. That was fun. But never anything that I set out that I actually had a goal to do. 

I thought it was neat that, you know, I was able to have the opportunity to be voted in as mayor as well as my father. But it was never anything that I just set out to do to make the accomplishment. 

So, like I said, our father started the business a long time ago. And it's a rep agency, we're a manufacturer, company rep agencies. So I have two older brothers. And so we represent and do all the sales and marketing for about six different industrial rubber, stainless metal PVC manufacturers um throughout the United States, we cover the lower four or five states of the United States and do all the sales and marketing for their products. It's a sales business uh that we do. We're in [CITY NAME], for good 30 plus years. And then uh we recently in the last five years, we moved further to the west side of the [GEOGRAPHICAL AREA NAME] area on the beltway. So I don't have to travel as far but uh that's what we do. We, we sell industrial products. 

No, I worked there full time, you know, even straight out of college. 

So that's where I went into uh graduated 1995 and started working in the company, that that same year. Um I didn't get into politics until uh 2010. But that's when I got on a city council. And what 2016 on city council and then from 2016, to 18 mayor at that time. 

My current job? 

Current job, which been same job since college um working in the family business, it makes it uh nice to have loved ones uh that are close to you to look after you and you look after them. Um gives us the freedom to, to build a lot of family type functions when we need to. Um my daughters, I had three girls and one son, they were all in athletics of some sort or something. So whenever the opportunity came that they had an event, and I needed to leave work, it was possible because then the other brothers taking care of the business while we were able to go to support our kids and their function. So that's a plus that truly enjoy. They have that freedom. A lot of people, you weren't certain corporate businesses, you get a lot of certain amount of days of sick leave, a lot a certain amount of days and vacation. And as a family business, we don't have that you just kind of take it when you need it and work the days that you don't so, so that made it nice. That's, that's a plus. That's fine. I like that. 

Biggest challenges we face today is just the economy itself. Our products are basically uh oil market products. And so when the oil markets are down, um and the economy's down in that aspect, there's not a lot of buying and selling. And so sales are down, you know when that when that happens, and so you hate to see that and uh. But it'll turn around. It's kind of like, you know, it changes with the time.

Ok, four being, totally agree or?

Definitely a four. Very proud. Proud. We're American culture and very proud to be. I love Texas. I'm very proud of Texas. The state I grew up in and I'm very proud to be resentful. Sure. Born and raised. So those are things near and dear to my heart. 

Yeah. Uh knowing the, the history of Texas you know, you kinda like "Well, that's interesting." Because it's, it was its own, you know, it was part of Mexico at that time. And so and it has the ability to become its own country they wanted to guess in state but morning born and raised American first, Texas second, um I love our culture uh so the diversity it has welcoming all different races and I love the colors of our flag. I'm very, I'm kind of one of those, over the top kind of person that loves this the shape of our state. You know, I if you if you were in my office at work, you would see Texas flag on the wall, you would see Texas shape. You know, I just that's just kind of like I'm a proud American Texan.

A little different. You get Louisiana has the L, 

But most of them are kind of different. So yeah, uh I I was very blessed and proud to be born here. And, you know, I we have people that work for us that have transplanted down from Ohio. And you know, I look at it as like, you know, what, after where in the world you go. People recognize where the Texas flag looks like. Yeah, sure. There's places that don't. But I give the people a hard time from Ohio. It's like, "I'm sorry. But I can't even tell you what your state flag looks like."

It's a pennant, like a pennant, you know. And it's um driving around the state of Texas, you know, you go to an ATM, you go to banks, hospitals, post offices, schools, very proudly flying American and Texas flag, and you go to a lot of other states. Colorado being one of them. Uh you can I mean, you can drive all the way through the state of Colorado and you might not even see the flag of the sound state. Which is kind of bizarre to me, 

Because you can drive down [INTERSTATE NAME] in [TEXAS CITY NAME], and you're gonna see flags as big as buildings, you know, flying. 

I think that's cool. 

Yeah, the pride pride. If people are like, oh, you know, people from Texas, it's a prideful state. It's something to be proud about, regardless, and I look at people and I say, "You know what, whatever state you're from, you should show it. Be proud." Yeah, why not? You know, and so I think that's, that's, that's a neat thing. For for the state of Texas for people to be from here. And people that move here, enjoy it, you know, the people that I met some people just last year, moved from Washington State. They said, you know, economy got bad, they took the jump and leap of faith just to trust that they were gonna just move to Texas and hopefully find a job and they did it and they said, it's been the best thing for 'em. But you know, they're like, "We couldn't wait to get here and we just love being here." And this is neat to hear people that you know, are glad to come and be a part of the culture and the pride of being from Texas. I would say... I would say a one because you don't have to be. I mean, like I said, Texas had many flags fly over this state. Before it was its own state. It was based on the Indian and Spanish and so no, my my I tell you, straight out my wife was born and raised in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas. Her mom was Hispanic, her dad was white. She didn't learn English. And so she went to elementary school. Her first language was Spanish. 

So no, I think to be Texan.  

Now do I think that needs to be the language that's most prevalent on government documents and stuff? Sure. But is it, it doesn't have to be. 

I think, I think Spanish is definitely one of the languages that's used a lot. There's a lot of different cultures. Now, I don't know how you, how do you, I don't, I don't know how the people at the DMV um are able to communicate with so many different cultures. Now, with so many different languages. 

It's interesting.

I mean, I'm fascinated to know that they have the ability to do that. 

[EXHALES] No, because not every household was ever raised around the Spanish culture. 

So no, you don't have to be. 

I wish I can't, I can't uh regain it as much as I wish I could. 

Absolutely.

I think nowadays you can, you can, you can do anything. Um I think because there's ability to have others help you or more people are more um prevalent and have different languages. So they, they, there's ways that you can get it done.

No, it's changed a whole lot. You know. So, last fourty years, it's changed a lot, especially for [COMMUNITY NAME]. 

[COLLEGE TOWN NAME].  

Yeah. The College Years. They were, they were fine. They were uh bigger cities than [COMMUNITY NAME] at that time, so they had a lot more uh uh restaurants and stores and stuff to shop in. So that was different. But for people to move to [COMMUNITY NAME], it's definitely a great place to raise a family. If you have safety, and you have uh value in the people and you have value in your property, and you know, all the resources will come in time with growth. But it's a great place to invest. A lot of people would like to move here. A lot of people tell me that a lot of times but just can't afford because of the value of the land and in homes and stuff like that. Um I think there are a lot of communities that have been brought into [COMMUNITY NAME] that have a different economic background that allows people to move here. Back when I was mayor at the time, and on council um. I don't think, I think we might have had two employees that lived in the city of [COMMUNITY NAME] that work for the city. And they were lifelong residents as well. So they were raised here but most of the employees at that time, "We couldn't live in [COMMUNITY NAME] because we can't afford it" or find a home that was of the value that they could afford. Because the median age or the median income of a home at that time was around the 350 range or something like that which was quite high for communities so.

Yeah, 

Yeah. 

Way above the average? What would the, the income of the whole household would be? 

Yeah, cause you look at a lot of cities, when, especially in your city government, you look at different areas and you see like the, the average household income might be in the 50s, or 60s, or maybe even some areas even lower than that. It just depends on where it's at. But you just like that's, that's not crazy. But it's just different than from what this community in, which is kind of strange, because growing up, population was under 600, maybe. And so  

So and you look at it, and I remember, always was interested in real estate, like, outside of high school, and um HAR, which is, that's the real estate website, you know, we didn't use Internet back then we didn't have internet, you wouldn't really evolve. But when HAR came online, I remember looking at, always wanted property when I was coming out of college, and so uh I'd always look for property online for sale, or [COMMUNITY NAME] on the HAR back then you would be amazed if you had one or two pages of property or homes for sale. That was it. There was nothing, no one sold anything. No one... no one was selling their home or their property. It was just very scarce.  

And nowadays, if you pull up HAR, it'll be I don't know, probably hundreds of pages of homes and property and stuff, but no one moved. People uh when I got out of college, wanting property, I wrote letters, and called people to a lot of the big property owners asking if they would sell just 10 acres, I just wanted 10 acres always just wanted like 10 acres, be big enough. And I thought I knew I would do whatever it needed to reef, just 10 acres off the end of their property. You know, I'll fence it, I'll replant it, I'll do everything. You just sell it to me. People weren't interested in this. You know, they had big ranches and they didn't care. Hundreds of acres they'd care less if, you know, someone wanted to buy a couple acres. But doing that 14 years later, I got a phone call from a realtor from Florida, who was representing her sister in law that lives, she lives in the northern part of Texas, but she owned property here. And there was heir to her from her family. And so there was other heirs that had property adjacent to her property. But she was interested in the settlement at that time. And I had written her a letter, and she kept it for like 14 years and wanted to know at that time if she if I wanted to still buy her property. And so which ended up being a blessing, which we did. It was unreal what she wanted for it at the time and what the price of property was going on at that time. It was you know, couldn't ask for a better blessing than that. But it's that's what's so different about how the value of [COMMUNITY NAME] has always just increased over the years. 

We own the small house downtown on [STREET NAME] between second and third street, my wife and I needed at the time. And you know every year you get an appraisal from the city or not from the city but from the county on the appraisal what they base your value your home on so they can base the taxes of your city taxes.

And county taxes and school taxes. And at that time our house increased really all at downtown increased like over a whopping 100% and values are just crazy, crazy amounts that we're comparing our homes to homes in [CITY NAME], [OTHER CITY NAME] area

And pricing and it was just it became a demand people wanted. People wanted to, it's a beautiful area. 

You come west that was really the first area that had a little bit of rolling hills on the topography and had wildflowers and the beautiful trees the peace, the country, you know? So it was a, still is it's an area that people desire. 

Traditional in, and I'm gonna ask you in what sense, traditional, so?

So I don't think it's gone away. I think it's changed with the times of what people's values are in the way they were raised um to what today's society seems skeptical, so it has changed.

I don't think the community wise like the city was saying they have changed their, their goals or anything, but I think the traditional family has changed in the way that they raised their family um. Not saying it's bad thing or, or it's a good thing. It's just different. Unfortunately, I think it is a downfall, the lack of respect that people have for each other and for authority being kids in schools or just neighbors or adults in general um. So that's changed a little bit in the sense that, but that's society, 

It's different. 

Now, I will tell you I'm not a reader, what sorts. 

So reading passage growing up in Texas, I lived in Texas all my life. I was born in Titus County. You know, when I was five, we moved to a farm near White House, which is southeast of Tyler, I lived growing up in the count of the country. When my chores were done, I'd ride my horse, climb trees or hike down to the creek to fish or swim. One time, we tied a rope to a land of a cypress tree, and we swing out and wide over the screen swimming hole and drop into the water. I'd pretend to be Tarzan swinging on a vine. In the spring I'd fly kites and on summer nights we catch fireflies, but we call them lightning bugs. Once in a while we have fights with corn cobs or pine cones. In the winter we build a fire in the fireplace and pop popcorn roast peanuts and pecans. I guess I was a livewire. When I was 19 I went to work in Dallas at a Firestone Tire store. I didn't like city life in for a long time I go home every chance I got mama would always cook my favorite foods fried okra hopping John's, that's rice and black eyed peas and pecan pie. We had lots of good times, but good home is not the same now, but going home is not the same now. After daddy died, Mama sold the farm and moved to Tyler. I'd rather be living on a farm right now instead of here in the city. But my wife and kids don't understand me when I gripe about city life and talk about moving to the country. My oldest child says "Daddy, that's crazy. I just die if I had to live on a farm." I almost cried the first time she said that. I know Texas is changing but I tried to make sure we don't lose touch with our roots. While we may live in a city, I want my kids to have a good feeling for the land. Have a sense of place and a pride and take pride in being Texans. If they're if they lose or our ties to the land, the price of progress is too high. 

I consent to be interviewed and audio recorded for the study. 

Well, I, uh, I was born in [COMMUNITY NAME], and I've lived in [COMMUNITY NAME] pretty much my entire life. I, um, left [COMMUNITY NAME] to go to college. And then, uh, after that, for employment, I moved to Austin and Lufkin, and  and then I've moved back to [COMMUNITY NAME].  

Uh it's just, uh, very well diverse, just, uh, people from all over the world. It's, uh, I think part of a big part of that's with that is the oil and gas industry, its economy is, uh, based on the oil and gas and the, uh, the high tech industry. And, uh, just that those two industries, bring a lot of people here and create a diverse community. 

It's it's definitely more diverse people from all over the world. Uh, growing up, it wasn't like that. It was, uh, like I said, it was just pretty much oil and gas. That's what most people were in. And then, um, just as I've gotten older, and the city's grown, and just the populations grown a lot, and just just definitely a more diverse community. 

Well, uh, [LAUGHS], the... the strength would be, I I think, uh, having a diverse community is very, uh, it's it's good for the community, people get to learn different cultures and meet, uh, people that are not from parts of the world that you're from. So you can definitely learn more about other people. Uh, being in a big city, unfortunately, what comes with a big city is crime. And you as, as I've gotten older, the city's definitely grown and the crime has gotten worse. And so it's not quite as safe as it was back when I was, uh, growing up as a kid, it's something you, you just have to be more aware of, and pay attention to your surroundings. And it's just just not as s-uh, safe feeling as it once was. 

Well, I'm a, I own my own business. Uh, it's a trucking company. And we do local trucking for construction. And I do a lot of, um, also, uh, out of state trucking for basically the same construction for a whole lot of lumber and, and that's pretty much it.  

Um, so ask again, lemme think about that. 

Well, the connections growing up here, you we, m-may- I have a business partner, and we both grew up in this area. And growing up here, we made a lot of just growing up here, you know, more people, you make more connections that way, and the more people you know, the more opportunities there are to to grow your business and do business with people that are in similar industries that you are. 

Actually, it was, uh, it's a family business, my father. Uh he he started this business back in 1980. And he and his business partner were in business together the entire time. They, his partner had a son, th-that's the same age as I am. And, uh, they saw an opportunity to pass this business on to us. So we've been running it and, uh, you know, unfortunately, both of our fathers have passed away and now it's become our business.  

It's- it can be so many different variables, we sometimes it can just be a smooth day, everything runs the way it's supposed to, you can sometimes get out of bed in the morning and just be sorry, you had to got out of bed because there's so many different things that could go wrong. Being in the trucking business, you can have breakdowns with equipment you can have, you know, having employees, you can have employees that don't show up for work, you can have unfortunate fender benders and accidents that can, uh, ruin your day. And just, it's, it could just go, um, yeah, for the most part, it's it's smooth, everything runs well. But when there's days that don't go your way, it's, it can be as frustrating as anything else. 

Started in 1995, so that would be almost 30 years.  

It's well, I mean you can take a lot of pride, there's things I'll see that are being in the construction, things that are built with all the highways and the the infrastructure of the the city, I I can take pride in the fact that we participated in that growth that we know there'll be, for instance, you know, I've had customers who built parking garages and drive by, see those parking garages, as you know, we do work that's been used to develop neighborhoods and build highways, and just you just can take a lot of pride and just feel really good about yourself that you're helping the city, uh, grow and make it more enjoyable for others. 

I would think so. 

It's like I said, it's, um, you know, being in the trucking business, you have a lot of liability. And we have...we c- we have like, minor accidents that people try to take advantage because they know we have, carry large insurance. So I've in that, and unfortunately, my because of these claims that we do have with insurance, not just us but the whole industry in a whole, the cost of doing business has skyrocketed in the past five years, my, my cost to insure one truck cost me six, seven times as much as it did five years ago. So it's hard to pass that expense on to your customers. And it's just probably the, that's, one of the hardest things to deal with is just the the cost and with, you know, inflation parts, we go back to even during COVID, you had a shortage of parts. And so if we had a truck breakdown, and we had a trailer breakdown, we were down longer than usual. You just, uh, just things like that- price of fuel. When that goes up, that's another thing we have. It's a- it's tough. So when you're dealing with some of these, um, variable expenses, y-it's just very difficult to to balance it all out and just, you know, keep things running as smooth as as they once were. 

Four.  

Four. 

I'd say equal- equally as important to me.  

[LONG PAUSE] Ah-? Two. 

[LONG PAUSE] One [LAUGHS]. 

One. 

Three.  

I, I'd say definitely growth. I mean, it's uh, the city. It-it's, you know, even you-you've talked about suburbs. We talked about just uh, [COMMUNITY SUBURB NAME],  [ANOTHER COMMUNITY SUBURB NAME],  [ANOTHER COMMUNITY SUBURB NAME], uh. Y-y-you know, when I grew up, all you had was, uh, the only loop in the city was [COMMUNITY HIGHWAY NAME]. Now, you have the [ANOTHER COMMUNITY HIGHWAY NAME], and [ANOTHER COMMUNITY HIGHWAY NAME]. It's just just keeps on growing outwards. It's just, yeah, it's it's way big. I mean, just, uh, think about where I lived growing up, and to get to where we are now. Eh, I mean, it's, I mean, there was nothing, nothing out here. There's cow pastures. So it's, uh it's just grown. 

Yes.  

It it was just the neighborhood I grew up in was a it was a fun neighborhood. We have lots of kids our age and, uh, we just all went to school together. And it it was just y'know a nice, at that time, safe place to live and had, uh, just being in Texas you- the neighborhoods you have everybody has nice yards and just loys of the areas to run around and play and play uh- I like sports and play. Had great little league for baseball and for football. It's just just really just just, it was a lot of fun growing up in [COMMUNITY NAME].  

Yeah.  

Not completely. It's it's it's definitely changed. When you look at where we how we grew up, um, we didn't have we didn't have all this technology. You couldn't watch whatever you wanted to watch on TV. You- so you're outside play most of the time. And and y'know nowadays, uh, the kids grown nowadays, y'all with the technology y'all don't even y'all can have a face to face conversation over your phone. You don't have to- I I just think he, it just seems like most kids nowadays might spend a little bit more time inside and just have other things to to distract them from going outside and enjoying what you can like we did.  

The Houston Astros. And they've spoiled me in the past seven years. But they, they're not having a good year this year. But I I still have faith. I think they'll turn it around and and hopefully get back on top like they were. 

Yes, I did, um, I had to mow the yard. Had to help my mom sometimes do some cleaning around the house and, um 

[INAUDIBLE NOISE] 

Probably mowing the yard. 

I just eh-I I I didn't like any of them [LAUGHS]. Maybe, maybe I guess doing the cleaning a little bit or something, I don't know [INAUDIBLE] n-none of the chores are fun.  

Yeah, probably a few times I was told to clean my room and threw everything in my closet or under my bed. 

I don't think so.  

Oh, yeah, I'm sure [LAUGHING], I mean... 

I can't think of a certain, uh, time I've done that I I just but I know, I've- there's been times when you're, you- I I I assume you're talking about maybe like if you're gossiping or something like that. And they're just your friends kind of give me that look like "Hey," [LAUGHS]. I I can't recall like uh- growing up I'm sure I did several times. Um, uh, now that I've gotten older and I respect people a lot more. So I definitely do not like to talk behind people's backs. 

To the 1990s? No, I would say the the 70s in the 80s.  Uh, I- I guess. I guess I can't pick two decades, I'd-I'd say the 80s. 

Yes. 

So I'm just gonna read this whole thing?  

I've lived in Texas all my life. I was born in Titus County. And when I was five, we moved to a farm near White House, which is southeast of Tyler. I like growing up in the country. [PAPER RUSTLING]. When my chores were done, I'd ride my horse, climb trees, or hike down to the creek to fish or swim. One time we tied a rope to a limb of a cypress tree. And we'd swing out wide over the swimming hole and drop into the water. I'd pretend to be Tarzan swinging on a vine. In the spring, I'd like I- I'd fly kites. And on, summer nights we'd catch fireflies, but we call them lightning bugs. Once in a while we'd have fights with corn cobs or pine cones. In the winter, we build a fire in the fireplace and pop popcorn and roast peanuts and pecans. I guess I was a live wire. When I was 19 I went to work in Dallas at a Firestone Tire store. I didn't like city life and for a long time I'd go home every chance I got. Mama would always cook my favorite foods fried okra hoppin' john, that rice and black eyed peas, and pecan pie. We had a lots of good times, but going home is not the same now. After daddy died, Mama sold the farm and moved to Tyler. I'd rather be living on a farm right now instead of here in the city. But my wife and kids don't understand me when I gripe about city life and talk about moving to the country. My oldest child says Daddy, that's crazy. I'd just die if I had to live on a farm. I'd almost cried the first time she said that. I know Texas is changing, but I tried to make sure we don't lose touch with our roots. While we may live in a city, I want my kids to have a good feeling for the land, have a sense of place and take pride of being Texans. If they lose our ties to the land. The price of progress is too high.  

I consent to being interviewed and audio recorded for your study. 

Do you want my name?  

You don't need it. Okay.  

Okay. I, my husband works for oil and gas company. And we traveled all over the world, we lived in six countries. And we- he was transferred back to his [NEARBY UPPER GULF COAST CITY] office for a short time while we're waiting on the next assignment. And so we moved to [COMMUNITY NAME]. And we fell in love with the school district for our children. And he stopped taking all the transfers, all the promotions, all the assignments, because we loved it here and wanted what [COMMUNITY NAME SCHOOL DISTRICT] offered for our children. And we fell in love with the community and our children are graduated now, gone off to college and gone off to great careers of their own. And we stay because we love our community so much.  

It's a small town feel in a big city surrounding. It's very warm. There's plenty of things to do to be involved in places, places to get connected people who will bring you in and get involved. And you can find anything for any uh, ideas or hobbies or places you want to get involved. It's here. 

The people. The school district. 

Absolutely. The school district is what draws everyone. When you interview people who wanted to move to [COMMUNITY NAME], it's because the school district is so successful, which is a very difficult thing, given the diversity that we have here. How it's changing over time, but so it's full of families with children.  

Well, of course, they, we all do. Everyone does. Traffic? You know? Um maybe, I don't know, maybe a few more, well, I don't know. I was gonna say small children oriented things that we can do indoors, it's because I recently became a grandmother. And we kept our grandson.  

For a few weeks, and it was hard to find something that- to do that you don't have to drop all the way to the museum in [NEARBY UPPER GULF COAST CITY].

Right? Or the zoo in [NEARBY UPPER GULF COAST CITY]. 

Well, I've been here 25, 26 years. And I immediately got involved in volunteering in our children's schools, because it was so big compared to where we were before. And we came from a school of private school of overseas, of course, and one of them was like, 120, kids K through 12. And one of them was like, uh, 2000 kids K through 12. And then we came here, and it was big,

and it was like, what is that? So I got involved volunteering, and substitute teaching to figure out what what our community looked like. And from there got involved with like, PTA and church and my church choir and Sunday schools and all the things where, where busy moms go to find community.

And so from there, through my PTA roles and leadership, people approached me to run for the [COMMUNITY NAME] ISD school board about six years in, and I ran for the school board in 2004. There were five of us, four men and me. 

Engineers and lawyers and all that. I didn't quite know what I was doing as far as elections go.  

And I won that one really big. And, and it was like, okay, the moms of this community wanted a voice like theirs on the school board. And I've been there since 2004. 

So 20 years. 

Three years. And I just won my 8th term in May. 

It is. And I love it, love it, love it, because from a school board perspective, we make decisions that are about student success on a grand level. When we came to [COMMUNITY NAME], there were around 32,000 children here. When I got on the school were there were 40 ish and change. And now we're at 96,000 students.  

So that growth is challenging,  

And how do you keep the standard so high when there are so many 3000 people, 3000 children moving here every year? But we do it, we do it because we always keep the focus on student success and student outcomes, no matter who the student is or where they live or what their zip code is. 

Mhm. Mhm.

So my degree is in consumer and family science,

From [LOUISIANA UNIVERSITY] but shortly after I finished my degree we began moving overseas,

And travelling. So I did a lot of jobs, but not in one single career because we moved so often.

I was a community liason for the embassy in Sana, Yemen, so I helped build commity programs and bring the community in to all the American embassy things, and so I did that. I, um, I organized the American womens- the International Women's club at one of the places, I was there. So everywhere I go I'm very active,

and bring people together,

You know thats.. One of my, my traits. Winning others over, and you know, synchronizing them, and helping all that. I also am- been substitute teaching for a long time. I also have worked for the [INSTITUTE NAME] Institute, which is about helping um, education- people in education meet the needs of their community. And currently, I am a part time public Participant and parent educator. 

Well, it's the key.  

It's absolutely the key. And I don't know how much of this you'll need to filter out,

I'm gonna tell you way more than you need. But the political climate is toxic.

It's angry, it's hateful. And it's very party driven now. Whereas school boards are nonpartisan, city governments are nonpartisan. Because we serve everyone in our community. And children don't have an R or a D after their name. 

So we have- school board members need to be nonpartisan, because our customers are the children and their education. But it's gotten worse and worse and worse. And this year was probably the most toxic I've ever seen it. And so when I ran for reelection, the target on me was that I was anti- of the political party that I've been very involved in, been very connected to a conservative political party. And it all just turned because of one vote I took that was about protecting children, instead of putting my political views onto an action that other people brought.  

And so it was, the attacks were intense. And so that ties to your question, that when they spent $80,000, to my $8,000 

On a campaign, that I won, with almost 60% of the vote against my opponent, who was very politically driven and had lots and lots of outside money supporting his views. And, and the the groups of those people- attacks on me that saying, I'm not who I, who I started as.

And the community connections, they know who I am.

Because of the involvement, the importance of coming back to your community, of building that strong thing and being involved. People know who you are. So they didn't believe the lies.

And they stepped up and stood out and spoke up like they never had before. It was very warm hearted, very encouraging, while also being like, hurtful and damaging in a way too, but when people stood up and said, "No, no, that's not who she is." That's why.. 

That's why community matters. 

Oh, no. 

Nothing is typical, because school board is a non paid position. We meet twice a month, third Mondays and fourth Monday of every month, beginning at five o'clock. Sometimes meetings last till eight, sometimes they last till midnight, depending on issues. So that is where I go to work and people see me on live streamed videos and things like that where we make decisions. But all through the time we're getting information, someone's asking us questions, a teacher will text us or email, or email me and say, "what about this," or a parent will say, "My child needs special accommodations" and so constantly, right?  

I have the sweetest college students asking to talk to me. And I'm always so flattered. Like, you want to talk to me. I'm nobody, but alright.

Things like that. Just random, people who, who need my help.

Community engagement, being available. We did summer school this summer. I've never been to the special ed summer school. All of the special ed students were at one campus and I got to go do that.

And visit that a couple of times this summer and see how that works. And I get to read to classrooms, and I get to judge pumpkin contests.

Like I want to be where students are and where teachers are. Because observation is such a powerful tool for the job I do. So I do a lot of that, but it's never predictable. It's one day here, one day there. We're opening a new junior high and a high school in two weeks. 

Yes. Yes. High school number 10 is opening.  

August 14. And so I'll be there first day welcoming students and just seeing how excited they are to be at the new [HIGH SCHOOL NAME].  

Yeah.  

Well. [SIGHS] 

No, it isn't. Because it- these are things that I've covered before, which are [COMMUNITY NAME], Texas, is not, does not have a city government of [COMMUNITY NAME]. [COMMUNITY NAME], Texas, 11 square miles, where we're sitting here has a city council, has a mayor. But [COMMUNITY NAME] ISD is 182 square miles. And it's unincorporated. Which means no city government. No, no, city council, no mayor, no, any of that. We all belong to like MUD districts, and we pay our own taxes to MUD districts that take care of our water and our needs like that. counties that take care of our streets and roads and lights and things like that traffic. So school boards the big deal,

because when you have 96,000 students in 75, schools, school board is the thing they know.  

And so it's a really, really, really big deal.

And it's an honor and a responsibility that is never lost on me.  

Children and teachers, honestly, people at campuses. Teachers who pour their lives, everything they do... sorry.  

To help students, get smarter

and better. You know,

You've had teachers who are like, Give of themselves, they don't make very much money. They'll never be famous, they'll never have a fortune. They don't care, they want- it's a calling, not a job.

And they do it with all of the challenges. And now there's a teacher shortage. So the demands on their times are are harder. There's a big push from a political party, that's saying- calling them indoctrinators and groomers. Like they don't have time,

to do the things they're accused of because they're too busy tying shoes and helping and like "Can I get you a snack?" And "Let me share my snack with you because you didn't be able to bring one." 

That that is the rewarding part of the jo

I want to back up and tell you one thing

that I heard someone say. That this very successful businessman got involved in public ed because he believed public ed should be run like a business. His name is [NAME]. 

Very wise man. And he said, and then someone brought me on to a committee to do something. He said, "you walk in schools, and you see miracles every time you look down the hall,"

Or every time you go into a classroom. He said "I've run several successful businesses. Miracles don't happen."

"The work, that's the reward, right."

"And with that comes challenges."  Right, we don't have enough teachers. There's a teacher shortage. We don't have the funding we need from the state government. They withheld our funding this year, because- there are $4.5 billion put in that account for public education and they wouldn't release it because we wouldn't agree to vote for vouchers. That's a challenge.

We haven't had a $1 increase, not one dime increase since 2019. And inflation skyrocketed.  

That's the challenge. 

Got it. 

4. 

4.

10

4

Yes, equally. Mhm.

[LONG PAUSE] Repeat the question. 

I don't care.

I don't- I don't care. 

I mean, probably? Probably. I mean, if you are a Texan, you would probably speak English.  

Right. Um. Probably, people who don't speak English, might not consider themselves a Texan because they probably have a different heritage.  

Probably.

Sorry, that took me a while.

No, I don't care, but... 

No.

Yes.  

No, no. [LAUGHS] 

Size. The amount of people. 

The number of businesses. When I first moved here, we had a Chili's and a Black Eyed Pea, and two grocery stores. 

Yes, so and it was about 100,000 people. And now we're 500 400,000. So we're bigger than Pittsburgh now. So- 

Yes, yes. That's the greater [COMMUNITY NAME] area. So those. 

That there's so many of you.  

Right. So all of the opportunities because no matter where you are, what school you're in, whether it's private or public, there are opportunities everywhere. So if you want to go into trades, there's that. And there are places to work all over. If you want to be in IT, if you want to be medical, we have everything. And if you want to be an athlete, there's that if you want to be fine arts, if you want to be a performer, if you want to be um, you know, a scholar, everything is here. And there's a diverse amount of um, groups you can join. For me and our family we had create church group and youth groups and mission trips and all those things that our children did and continue to do. And they're just something for everybody. Way beyond the mall. [LAUGHS] 

We didn't have a mall when I first moved here.  

Um, around 2004? Maybe 2002. 

Well, so it would have to define tradition. 

I- it's hard because for me, no.

But as I see multiple families moving here with multiple generations living under one roof, and I know that happens in our, maybe fastest growth areas.

We're having more people who are not from Texas, not from the US, right,

Moving here, and welcome, happy to have you. And you know, they're moving here for the same reasons we did opportunities for our children.

Multiple families or multiple generations, grandmothers, and that are living, they all live together. And so what's traditional? For them that's tradition, right?  

For mom, dad, brother sister, probably doesn't look like that everywhere.  

But for a lot of people it is, and it- a lot of that still really exist, right?

And you're going to baseball camps, and you're going to volleyball camps and cheer camps and, and you're doing the, the private leagues, you know, where you go to volleyball all over the state and all over the country that those things still are very much a part of, you know,

[COMMUNITY NAME]. But it's changing. Our demographics have changed so much since I came here. That we were- no, no, this fits here. It does fit here. But we were, you know, predominantly white students. And now it's about a quarter.  

Mhm. Diversity.

Demographics. You're right.  

Okay I'll add one more thing there. 

And because of my school board position, which I, you know, I can't do anything,

It's called low SES.

And so socioeconomic doesn't have to do with color it has to do with income levels. And that was always hovered 30 to 32%. For years and years. In the last four years, it went from 32 to 35 to 39 to 44.  

That's almost half- 44% of our students live in low income.  

44%. So, those things are the things that apply to some of that. 

And yet, we're still delivering quality education, which is what we care about, right,

to make it to make a brighter future for boys and girls.  

I know right, I mean, it's just in the last four years.

And that challenges us in many ways of like, how do you continue to offer world class education, to boys and girls with less opportunity at home to be reinforced?  

Have to have that in there. It's our, our demographics has changed, like I said, from 50, more than 50%, white to more of a blend of everything. And our socioeconomic numbers have changed our low-

It does. It does. Because we know- University of Texas will know this for sure.

We know that when you have a low income student, low socioeconomic level student, that the reinforcement doesn't happen once they get home, maybe, maybe it's a single parent, maybe mom and dad are working, maybe they're maybe they're, whatever reasons, maybe they don't um, have a high level of education themselves, maybe not, you know, a college degree or a graduate degree, even for other people who have high income.

That kind of do it in the- no matter what the weather was.

And so that reinforcement of education probably doesn't happen as much when you get home. And so tomorrow when the boys and girls come back, they haven't talked about it or spent time on it. So it's not really that continual. And the level of vocabulary for, for low SES children is much more reduced than those with parents who have a higher income, higher education.  

You know, like, it's something like 25,000 word vocabulary or something. I can't remember the numbers, but it's significant.  

Of one versus the other. And so it just takes more. It takes smaller class sizes.

Teacher student ratio, which is expensive. And requires more classrooms requires more buildings, right.

Requires more growth, which is expensive.  

And, and time consuming. And more teachers in a teacher shortage world.  

So there's your challenge, but we're on it all the time.  

Yes, and finding ways to send support into classrooms. So teachers don't have to go home and go okay, this isn't working. I need a manipulative I need to go on YouTube and find a lesson plan that will work. We have instructional coordinators who do that for teachers.  

You know, they know down to the very child in this seat, of the struggles they're having based on assessments. We do a DLA, District Level Assessment, learning assessment as they go. And so we know, oh, they're struggling with multiplying by fractions. Here's a manipulative- here's this lesson that would be able to help you have about six kids in your class that need a little refresher on this. And so we send help to teachers so that they can pour all of their time into boys and girls without having to go and do all that themselves.  

That's how we're different. 

Astros. 

Not as good as they've been in the past, but we love them.  

We're spoiled. So easy to get to a game and watch them and... 

[LAUGHS] I was- sorry. We didn't have a dishwasher at our house because it had me and my sister. [LAUGHS] 

The dishwasher, and the clearer of the table, and the stirrer of the macaroni.  

[SIGHS] Probably feed the animals. 

We did, kinda lived out on a big property and we had rabbits and chickens.

Kind of the one I didn't like. 

I liked cooking. 

It's not like a chore. Yeah, yeah. I-I majored in consumer and family science because I did love that part. Yes.  

Home economics. It's the old- it's the new word for the old home economics.  

Home economics degree, yes. And I like organizing. Like, I like putting things in its place. But I don't really like cleaning cleaning.  

I do like making order of chaos. 

[LAUGHS] Yes. Yes.  

It is. It is. Because when you have order, you can think better, right?  

We had four children. And, 

And my dad who worked a lot. And so it was just constant, you know, dogs and cats, chickens and bunnies and all that. And so it was constantly like, chaos.

But it was fun. 

[LAUGHS] Yes.  

How slowly can you fold the towels and then just shove them all in, you know, when mom's not lookin'? Just close the door. 

[GASPS] Ohh. 

Of course. Doesn't everyone?  

It's so embarrassing.  

No, no but I do- but you remember the feeling of like, [GASP]. Sorry! 

Right behind me or at the... Did you hear that? Sorry. Yes. 

Not often! But when you do it you remember like [SIGHS], you do. And it wasn't horrible it was just like talking about them like they weren't in the room. 

Well, no, because that's way past my time. Right. Like I've- I love 70s music.  

I mean... 

Yeah. Yeah. 70s and 80s? Yeah. 

 90s...Yeah, I had kids for 90s. It's all good.  

Yes, they would say yes. Is that Britney Spears?  

Okay. It's my daughter's love of Britney Spears. And then Taylor Swift.  

[LAUGHING] Willing, but you do not want to use my example. I will say that when I I left Texas and moved to six countries- [DOES AN EXAGGERATED TEXAN ACCENT] I'm way better than I used to be. 

Because I grew up in panhandle.  

It helped some to learn some other languages. But um, okay. Consonants are not my strong suit. 

[LAUGHS] I think this is fun.  

Marissa, this is a really cool thing I thought it was gonna be intense.  

I thought I needed to come with data. 

I want to know how it goes.  

I'm very into it too. I wanna know. It's so good.

No, no I won't bother them. 

Okay, not gonna take my glasses out, we'll see how I do. Okay. "I've lived in Texas all my life. I was born in Titus County. And when I was five, we moved to a farm near White House, which is southeast of Tyler. I liked growing up in the country. When my chores were done, I'd ride my horse, climb trees or hike down to the creek to fish or swim. One time we tied a rope to a limb of a cypress tree and we'd swing out wide over the swimming hole and drop into the water. I'd pretend to be Tarzan swinging on a vine. In the spring I'd fly kites and on summer nights we'd catch fireflies, but we'd call them lightning bugs. Once in a while we'd have fights with corn cobs or pine cones. In the morning we'd build a fire in the fireplace and pop popcorn and roast peanuts and pecans. I guess I was a live wire. When I was 19 and went to work in Dallas at a Firestone tire store. I didn't like city life and for a long time I'd go home every chance I got. Mama would always cook my favorite foods, fried okra, hoppin john- that's rice and black eyed peas- and pecan pie. We had lots of good times we're going home. It's not the same now. After daddy died, mine was sold the farm and moved to Tyler. I'd rather be living on a farm right now instead of here in the city. But my wife and kids don't understand me when I gripe about city life and talking about moving to the country. My oldest child says "Daddy, that's crazy. I just die if I had to live on a farm." I almost cried the first time she said that. I know Texas is changing. But I try to make sure we don't lose touch with our roots. While we may live in a city, I want my kids to have a good feeling for the land have a sense of place and take pride to be Texans. If they lose our ties that land the price of progress is too high." 

It can't be over!  

Oh, well girl, that most people would say- this, cut to the... 

Really? Oh, really? 

Okay, I was afraid I was talking too much,  

or giving away too much that wasn't a part of what you were looking fo

But I can tell you're talking about community. You're talking about life here. You're talking... 

I love that. Man, I want to know more about the findings.  

We have lot of that in [COMMUNITY NAME].  

And children move back. And they have their kids and they're here with their parents. And it's that's what's happening. There are lots of people whose grandchildren now go to the school they went to.

Yeah, so good.  

Absolutely. Yeah, there's so many opportunities here.  

Absolutely.  

Thank you for inviting me.

I'm pleased to be a part of it.  

I think so?

Yes

Born here, raised here? Um- finished school here. Um- went to college at SFA. So I've- this has been my area this is where I've been.

Today... Um- I think it's a good place to live. Uh- I think like every other place, it's got its problems. And they're probably more pronounced today than they were back when I was a kid. But I think it's close enough to the big city that you can do- go and enjoy the things of the big city, but you still be able to stay in a small town flavor. Where you live.

throughout what?

It's changed dramatically. When I was a kid, nobody locked their doors. This might be true for I think all over the united- or many places in the United States, not necessarily the south and here in Lufkin. But there just neighbors took care of neighbors. If someone told you something you could rely on it. My grandpa ****** used to say "if that fellow tells you that a rooster dipped snuff, you can look under his wing and find his snuffbox", because it would be the truth. And I think I think the biggest thing that's changed is the family unit in many cases. I think um- That's that's the sad part. (Phone goes off) I think. That's really um- to have a mother and father, I never realized that where I'm headed with this is: I had a wonderful, wonderful parents. They were disciplinarian, and I have no problem with that. Didn't hurt me a bit. And, but as my son, my youngest, was in high school, he had some friends who didn't- who didn't have a two parent household. And until I've met those kiddos and kind of got involved in that and involved in the uh- athletics at Lufkin High School and the head coach here and I got to be good friends. And some of those kids, you don't realize. I didn't realize that I wish there was some way to fix that.

Strength of the community? It's a can-do community. You call on people to do something- you asked for something- I think this can best be described as there was a ti- that the last bank I worked for the headquarters is in Nacogdoches, the bank is over 120 years old. It's been here forever been over there forever. But I worked and managed a branch here in Lufkin. And so I work closely with those folks and one of the guys who was telling me one day, he said, "you know, the difference between Lufkin and Nacogdoches?" And I said "well, I know a lot of differences". And he said, he said, "you know, um- we built an expo center over here. And then Lufkin steps up and builds one we could set ours inside of" and so anything this community needs like a community center, a Civic Center, an expo, whatever, they make it happen. And I've been into this and found this to be true. Um- I was the president and the secretary for the high school Booster Club, athletic Booster Club. And um- if we had a project, all we had to do was go talk to some of the businesses in town. And we'd get it done. It's just a can-do place.

Um... you know, I've never thought of it that way because I've kind of lived in a bubble. and I don't see probably- I think there's probably more crime now than, than there was in the past. And I think that's true everywhere, but especially true here. And uh- I'll go off on a tangent here a little bit, you may want to draw me back in but- in 1972 I was dating a pretty girl, and she was a freshman at SFA. And I was at my first banking job. (Phone goes off) And um-

Yeah, I will, I should have done that to begin with. But you can erase that part. Long story short, um- didn't never occurred to me, ever, in 1972 that this would happen to us. But we've been on a date, guy pulled a gun on us, put me in the trunk, tied me up, did some other horrible things. And we managed to get out of that. And so I never would have dreamed that would have happened back then. More likely now. So the bad people, and there's good people. And uh- always have been, always will be. That's just the way it is.

The what?

the roles?

that I have in the community?

Well, being retired, I don't do what I used to do. But I at one time coach little league baseball, I was in the Lions Club. I was in the Kiwanis Club. It's expected of you when you work in a bank to be involved. I was I was on committees with the Chamber of Commerce. And um- but as I was when I retired, I um- retired. I thought I've coached and enough little league baseball, I've done- I've done what I, you know, need to do. So I still, you know, somewhat active in church and those kinds of things. But but as far as being a treasurer or board person, they asked me here the while back because I wanted to be on our local water board. I used to be the president and I went "No. Thank you, no. That job didn't pay well. So I- "

What did I do for work? Well, throughout my career, I did a little bit of everything. But this time with my retirement. My- my main focus was managing the second or other than the main office, mine was the biggest branch, I had 13-14 employees, and I was responsible for the profitability of the branch. But in addition to that, and I was given goals, and as far as production of loans, I was given the goals as to deposit growth. And you had to meet and clear those hurdles. Uh- And uh- the part I had and you may get to this later, but the part I really, I didn't care much about doing budgets, and I didn't care much for personnel issues. What I liked was talking to people, what I liked was uh- seeing somebody get a house that they had worked hard for and saved, and I felt like I was part of being able to see them move into a home. I also did but I also want them primarily I was called a commercial lender. But it- I still had customers that I had helped with car loans unless you're expected to see me do that. But those that's the part of the job. I really liked was was the people. I miss that.

Give me that one again?

My connection in the community? (Mhm.) That's a good question. Because you typically are from my point of view. When you think of somebody that works at a bank, you typically think of somebody that likes to play golf, and somebody that may live in the Crown colony that uh- that likes to go to um- cocktail evenings and I'm a country guy. I do not like living you can see where I'm at my house is here in the woods. I never played golf. I hate it. not- l don't hate it. I tried it once I didn't like it seemed like a waste of time to me got it um- but so I knew that I knew that I didn't want to call it hob knob I didn't hob knob with a lot of doctors, had some attorney buddy, my best friend's an attorney and some people that I knew The local fellow that owned all McDonald's was a good friend of mine had recently passed away. And but recently he was my friend, is I used to fool with classic cars. And he did too. And one of my friends uh- from school was- restored cars. And so from that, we became good friends. Anyway. Um- I felt like my strength was that if it was a doctor, I could talk- and I had some doctor clients don't misunderstand. But my boss asked me one time or told me, he didn't, we were talking about what he wanted. He said, "I want you, I would like to see more of a mix and see in your portfolio and in your deposit base for that branch. I would like to see more medical people" and I had handful. And I said, "if that's what you say, that's what I'll do". I said but, you know what I'd rather have. This is what I told him, I said, "I'd rather have 10 Good old boys that work at the foundry than one doctor". He said, "why?" And my answer was, "because those 10 Guys will be loyal to you. They don't beat you up for rates. They don't expect you to wait on them and drop what you're doing, and go cater to them". And I guess probably I can relate to them better than I do. Doctors.

Yeah, it's pretty good story. When I was I went to SFA. And uh- can I digress a minute here? And I'll tell you something, that and this- I don't want to get into politics. But my father came back from World War Two with tuberculosis. He did a lot of stents in the VA hospital, he did nine months, once, six months, once, three months once. And because of that, we didn't have a terribly lot of money. Now we had we never went without. But um- when it came time to look at college, I would have liked to go to University of Texas. To be honest, I don't know if I was smart enough to get in. But there was no money for us. There was nothing and at that point in time, there were no, I mean, this is 1965. There's, you know, if there was any grants or anything, I knew nothing of it. But here's the plan. My dad worked 45 years, at the paper mill here. They had a summer work program. And he said, and I could make enough money, working at the Paper Mill in the summers to pay my tuition and buy my books at SFA. both semesters, I had to live at home. And I worked part time pumping gas. Now the reason I mentioned this is because if you want to do something, you can do it. You just got to figure out a way to make it happen sometimes. But so what happened then, and the Vietnam war was going on. And I was motivated [LAUGHTER} to stay in school, because you could get a deferment because the draft was going on. And then when they finally tried to draft me, I didn't pass the physical. But uh- it's another story for another time. But so I came- I got home. And here's the answer to your question. I had a buddy, a good buddy in high school who was working as a manager at a finance company. And, he, when I got came back from not passing the physical, well he and I were out messing around he said, Hey, what are you gonna do? And I said, I'm not sure I'm not sure at this point. And he said, Hey, I know where there's an opening at a finance company. And I said its plains finance, I don't know if it's even still here, but, or around but uh- long story short, I applied for the the position and I went to work for them as as a collector of past dues. And no, no, he worked for plains finance, let me straighten this up. And I went to work for Home Credit Corporation HCC credit, and they made loans up to $1,500. And they made smaller loans to folks and charged an exorbant interest rate and that sort of thing, but um- but they had a really good training program, they had a good training program relative to collecting past dues. And you didn't get promotions if you didn't pass these uh- programs that they put forth and if you wanted to be promoted, and- um- and so anyway, it was a good it was a good fortunate thing for me. One day though, I was went to lunch, and I had a buddy that I commuted with one semester over to SFA that wants to go with good friend of mine, ran into him at lunch, we were eatin at Dairy Queen. And he went, he was working at the old Lufkin National Bank. That's not here now. And he said, uh- he said, Hey, I'm being promoted. And my job's gonna be open. You're thinking about working for a bank. And I went: yeah it crossed my mind one time, but I never- And so I came into Lufkin National Bank as a trainee, and I worked as a teller. I worked in the accounts. I worked all over the bank, which was really great, and it gave me a good background. And from there, I went to another bank and got into lending. He got on a loan platform and went from there.

I worked 40-45 years.

Again, I rambled on you a little bit. Things that appealed to me about going to work for a bank, back in 1969- 70. No, 70 Excuse me, 71. Those days, no banks were open on Saturday. Many banks closed at two in the afternoon. Some at three. Now you didn't get to go home at two or three o'clock. But the doors were closed. And what you did was you balance your drawer, and you got everything ready for the next day. And you went on. And I thought yeah, this is my kind of deal. And, uh- but then bank started opening on Saturday, the hours change. And uh- at the, uh- at the end of the- at the end of the my, my career. We were open. We were open five and a half days a week. I didn't I didn't have to work on Saturday. Now, what I had did do was I had- I had two other loan officers that worked under me and we rotated. And we had to be on-call in case the tellers had a problem. But- But usually, I would be home by 5:00-5:30 La- later sometimes, and- and I asked my boss when I interviewed for the job. At the end of the interview, never will forget, I said I've got one more thing. He said, What's that? I said, "I never asked to get off on play golf. I don't hunt. I fish a little bit, but I'm not asking to be off for that. But what I do like, Is Lufkin high school football. And what I would like is sometimes when there's an out of town game, I'd like to leave early." He said "I don't care if you leave all day, as long as you got the job done." I said, "Okay." so that that sold me on that. But yeah, that's- that that answered your question? That's what we did. That what we did.

Um Even today, I ran into somebody here not long ago at a restaurant. And sadly, I didn't recognize them. But that's not unusual. Because with bankers, here's the deal. The people you get to know really well are the ones who struggle, because you're always talking to them. The ones you see every year or every other year. And all they come in to do is make a loan. I know I know them. But I didn't have a lot of interaction with those types. And this guy- this guy and his wife came, he said, "***** ******, where have you been?" And he shook my hand. He said, "How are you?" He said he looked at his wife said, "This guy made me my first loan when I was 18 years old. And I have followed him to everybody". That's cool. I- That uh- To think that you had an impact on somebody. Much like coaching little league ball, I still have some- they're not kids anymore. But when it's my birthday, I've still got some of those guys that are now almost 50 years old. That will send me a birthday and say "Coach, I hope you had a great birthday". So it's the relationships that last through the years and the things that you felt like you had a part of the- of their success that you, not you, partially the bank, but I was representative of the bank. And so if you help folks, that's the part. that's the part.

I've already touched on that. I'll tell you a quick story. I worked at a little bank at one point and this lady came in who had rheumatoid arthritis. And she had one son that was special. But he could drive. She had another one that was wheelchair bound. And this lady, I don't know how she could function, but she came in. And she said, "I need to borrow $500 to build a wheelchair ramp at my mobile home for my son in a wheelchair". So I said, "You bet", and I pulled everything up and put it together. I don't think she had any credit. Consequently, it was with- outside my lending authority, if you don't have any credit, or if you've got bad credit, but I went to the president of the bank was great guy, he's gone. Now. He's deceased. Named *** ****. And I said, here's this lady. He said, You tell her that the bank will pay for it. We'll just do that. And he said "no wait a minute". He said, "You make- make her a loan, charge her a reasonable rate like 10%", which is nothing on= you don't make anything on $500 10%. "And if she pays it, she'll build some credit, and she may need something else down the line. And then you'll be in a situation or she'd be in a situation where you can help her". As it turned out. She paid like, just like nobody's business. And I did make her more loans. And she did get credit established, and she had some credit. And then, in the course of this, uh- this lady developed some cancer on her nose, had to have her nose amputated. I mean, it was just one thing after another. But she was always up. And she came in. And she said, the paper mill, she lived in behind the paper mill, on some property, her property in a mobile home. She said "they're buying up property around us, and they bought- made me an offer a pretty good offer. But I want to know if I can buy a house, and I found one I want". I said, "Absolutely". And so we uh- just, she was so happy to get those kids in. And as luck as- is- things would to have it, the house was just down the road from where I live. But that lady passed away shortly after and did not get to enjoy it, and that was the saddest part. But to see somebody who was fighting to make... banking is one of the few professions that you- you can have an impact, I think on things like that, and helping people. And you know why I'm talking about this, you know, one of the things that banks, banks are regulated in on many fronts that everybody thinks in terms of safety and soundness. And that's where they come in and check your loans. But there's a lot of other audits by the government. And there's other regulations. One of them is called the Community Reinvestment Act. And the Community Reinvestment Act says, "bank, you must do some things, in your community to benefit- using your banking knowledge, using your skills to help people who are low income". So we look for thing- and if you do not, if you don't score well, you can even be monetarily penalized when you're audited on this. And if you want to build branches, you're not going to be able to build branches you're not gonna be able to make acquisitions, nothing. So it's pretty important. They're very serious about it. One of my customers was a warden at the prison, down in ******. And he and I were talking about plans one day he's actually I'll give him the credit he said, Hey, "we- our prison is the last stop for these guys. They're going to be getting out within two years. Most of them or a year. And they are required to complete a life skills class". He said "would you come talk to those classes about what's changed in banking"? I said "you bet that's perfect. I mean, they're low to moderate income". And I enjoyed going. I mean, the first time I went to go through all the gates and through the bars, you're out in the yard with them, and- and then you get in there. But it- And you look at the class and they would be sometimes 15, Sometimes 20 people in the class. You look at one guy and he looks like the kid next door. Look at another guy, and he looks like your grandfather. You know, can't ask them why they're there. If they volunteer, that's fine. But there's always- there was always almost without exception, there were two duds maybe three that would just put their heads down and go to sleep, didn't care don't want to hear. And and I would talk to him about how to open new accounts how to get your credit credit reestablished. I would talk to them if you're going to- thinking about doing a business, here's what you need to do you have questions, and there would be four or five that take notes and have questions. But I felt like- that um- if if some of that helped some of those guys, because I got a lot- they got a steep hill to climb. And- and so that's the kind of things people don't know that that banks do that, uh- And- and we also I went and I used to have a talk, and I would go about every year and talk to kids in high school. And it was about banking primarily but I also worked in one of my deals is kid- please, kids don't drink and drive. I mean, here's what it can cost you, stuff like that. Anyway, that was a long answer but it it banking afforded the opportunity for me to to feel like I was doing something good for somebody much like Little League Baseball. I loved being with those kids. And- and just I had one kid in particular who I started with him when he was six. I moved up to the next level. I got him again, and he had a temper and and to this day, when he got up he would ride a bicycle about five miles just to come see me man come see me to see if I'd give him a beer, and I'd go "no". I'm not gonna give you a beer. But But anyway, that's and you make good relationships with people there too. And people come bank with me because you lose for me to somebody does good something good for my kid. You got me I'm paying attention I'm- so anyways-

biggest challenges today are at any point , uh-if we're talking today having attained my age, you've learned I've learned a lot of things the hard way. I have seen a lot of things. I can see how a molehill can turn into a mountain. I can see how you can get blindsided. So I- if there was if there was an Olympics for worrying, I- I would be first place most of the time, and particularly about my children. I don't want them making the same- And I've got one that just doesn't listen. never will. But, um- one of the hardest things that I've learned, I can't believe that I'm this old. That's the first thing. My brain. I can't get it in my head. My brain still thinks I'm 30 years old. And it tells my body: "Oh, you can go cut that tree down and cut it up". And about halfway through my body goes: "You lied. You lied". And so. So you my thinking hasn't changed until I look in a mirror I go "oh man. who's that old guy?" And so the hardest thing for me to do is remember, I can't do the things I once did i- You fool around and get hurt. And uh- my challenge when I was working was- um- I'm kind of competitive. And, uh- if I wasn't meeting goals, and if the branch wasn't meeting goals, I just agonized over it, and that probably took years off my life because I would worry about it because everybody wants to be a winner. You want to get you get patted on the back. I had- when I was at the bank that I told you about where the lady we were in a loan meeting one morning and one of the things she said track for the loan officers is your percentage of past dues. Percentage of loan if you've got a portfolio of- I think mine when I retired was approaching 40 million that I loaned out that was out on the books. If you're past dues that are 90- ur- that are 30 days- no, was it 60 to 90 days, past and more. If the percentage of that port- total portfolio you wanted it, ideally you wanted it under 2%. This bank that I worked for they were okay with three and a half percent. And of all the loan officers in that bank, mine, were always I was- mine my past dues. Were always I was a little. So in this loan meeting, the president of the bank **** **** again, he said, Well, Mr. We got that through over done. He said, "Well, Mr. ***** you you've had some attaboys. Today, you got anything you want to say". I said, I had been working at that time, I said, "I've been working at the bank for 20 years, over 20 years. And one thing I've learned is that you can take a room full of attaboys. And all it takes is one Oh no. and they evaporatet". He said "you're exactly right". And, and, and that probably was one of the toughest things. Because if you don't, if you don't, particularly with mortgage lending, it gets so complicated if you don't do the proper disclosures at the proper period of time, and, and so forth. The bank is- you can cost the bank money monetarily. And you can't, there are certain things you can't, you gotta be careful that you don't mislead them. You know, I mean, unintentionally, you would never do intentionally, but anyway, it's, it can be up from that standpoint. High pressure.so.

Mmkay

Absolutely

A 4 yeah

Four.

I am a very proud Texan. So I think they're equally important.

Alright, ask me that one again.

Hmm... maybe a 3 I don't- you know- I don't think

No, I don't think that something super-

Yeah.

yes, 4

Yeah. That's about a two. Things have changed a lot.

Well, think just to My mind to begin with is we had a paper mill. We had two foundries. We had a bunch of industry and it's all gone for for one reason or another, and, uh- and we- we've turned into a medical hub for the surrounding areas. That's nothing. That's great. That's wonderful. But it was just really sad to see some of those businesses that had been here for a long time go away.

A four. yes.

The best part about being a teen as well, not being a teen. I dont know- I don't. I really don't. I don't know how to answer that. I think, on the other side of the coin, I can answer. I wish there were more things and activities and to do, and, uh- I think I think we fall short a little bit there, and uh- So but I don't know. But in the and, I think that would eliminate a lot of the problems. Some of the teams get into that's Sad to see, but anyway,

Well, I need to be I need to- define traditional are we talking like a household with mom, dad? Is that what we're talking or what are we?

I think it's- I think for the most part, yes, it's still I see. Uh- Mostly, uh- mostly the same, I think.

Well, it's just from what I observe, I still, um- still see I still see kids participating in sports and participating in band and all those activities that I grew up participating in and I just think that I don't see a lot of change from that perspective. That's my world. But you got to know my world was not as broad as it once was. So I probably can't answer that very well. But-

Well, if you're talking High School certainly the [LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL]. I graduating from ****** and I bleed purple. My sports team? I'm a little different from some other folks I don't quite understand. But I have my favorite teams within the state of Texas and college. My first- my first choice is University of Texas, and I've always been always will be. So if University of Texas playing some other team inside Texas, I'm pulling for the Longhorns. But if the Aggies are playing some team over Louisiana, I'm gonna pull for the Aggies. If they've got Texas and in their name or a school in Texas, and they're playing somebody outside the state, then that's- I'm going to pull for the Texas Team every time. One of the reasons the: No you didn't ask me this. Maybe you are. My least favorite college team. And let me finish up my favorite professional team. I do the same thing: number ones the cowboys. Number two, though, I still pull when those two when they are- not the Warriors the Texans and and Dallas play. I'm usually don't pull from Dallas, unless it means that they're out of the playoffs, and Houston can get in the win, I'm probably gonna pull for Houston. I won't see him in the playoffs. But what I was gonna say about the college side of this. I do not care if the University of Oklahoma is playing tiddlywinks. I want them to lose. And here's the reason why. We had a good kid that was recruited by Texas, and Texas A&M, and Oklahoma and he ended up going to Oklahoma. This some years back, this is when Coach ***** was still alive. And I- and coach ****** told me where he was going. And I said, Well, here's what I'm gonna say about that. I hope he leads the league in tackles. I hope he never gets hurt. I hope he has an excellent season. And I hope he loses every game. And I've also made the statement that if there was a law passed that the University of Oklahoma could never, no, not ever recruit in the state of Texas, they wouldn't win three games a year, and why a kid from Texas. I'm having so proud of Texas. Why would you go up there and bring glory to them anyway? Now i'm preaching. I'm sorry.

Oh, right. Outstanding. I'm very excited about this, this upcoming season? And if, if- I'm gonna be real disappointed, it's not a real success. And I am. You know the only the only thing that distresses me a little bit is some of the students cited that The Eyes of Texas has got a problem. And it's been there forever. And I've just anyway, sometimes, it seems to me we look for problems where there are no problems and I just- that aggravates me a little bit. But I will always be behind the Longhorns. And I hope they're back in the championship game. Good again. Matter of fact. I got a cap I started. Wearing today for the you know the Championship.

Did I do what?

Oh my Yes. Absolutely. Uh- I, uh- mowing the yard, my dad would we work shift work. And Saturday morning he would leave about 6:30 to go to the paper mill he'd wake me up and he'd say, and you get home about three 3:15 And he'd say I want this yard mowed when I get in. Now, it was amazing to me how quick three o'clock would roll around and I had not mowed. If I'm cranking belong mower I'm safe. But if I have not started the lawn mower, its trouble. And yeah, I had and I- we had chickens for a while I had to go the eggs and got in trouble for bustin eggs on a rooster that was mean. And, uh- and those kinds of things. And while we're talking here, I'll tell you a quick thing. My neighbors were kind of like my second set of grandparents, and I was probably 14 years old 15- 15 probably. And they were having hay cut. This field back here. And I was out there piddling around and the guy that was hauling in the hay and putting it in the barn. There's bales of hay, you know they didn't do round bales back then. He asked me he said "hey, I need a little help you interested in making some money?" And I went "Yeah", and I'd hauled some hay before a little bit. And so we hauled hay. I thought we would quit at dark and we didn't. We work until about 10:30. And I cam- I came dragging in, this is, and I'm telling this story because of my dad. This was the kind of guy he was. And I got a bath and he came in there and dragging and he said "what time you got to be out there again in the morning?" I said, "I don't think I'm gonna go." And he said, "Did you tell this fellow that you would help him with his field of hay?" "Yes, sir". He said "then you're gonna go". He said "you don't have to go to the next field. But he's relying on you help him get this hay in the barn". Now you got to know. I was the youngest of the crew. I was last one home. And one of the worst jobs about hauling hay is they're outside throwing it into the crib to you and your inside of the crib. Where, there's no air, there's dust and stacking in it. And no wind, and that was a part of the job. And then so I'm out there the next day. And I grab a bale of hay and put it on my knee and I throw it up to the guy stacking it on the truck. And there's a half a snake the head half hanging out. And I almost tendered my- my resignation at that point. But I toughed it all out. And, uh- at the end of the week, I think I worked all week and I think I made 20 bucks or something like that. And the guy said "you want to go the next field" I went "uh- No, I think my hay haulin days are over". But it was a good lesson though, I never committed to doing a job, again.

The worst chore?

Uhm- Well, there was jobs we did that I did not like, But day to day chore. I didn't like gathering the eggs because this rooster we had he would try to spur you. I mean, he tried to jump and flog you and, and you had to get a stick to get in the chicken yard and keep him at bay. Now for some reason, he wouldn't come in the chicken house. And so I could get in there gather eggs. And usually I didn't have very many I could take my stick and get back to the gate get out. Well, just one day I had a bunch of eggs. I couldn't get my stick and I'm looking out the door, and I don't see him. And I hit it for the gate. And he's laying in wait. And here he comes. I grab an egg. And I busted it on his back. And he backs off of me, and then I grab another one before I'm thinking and I hit him again. He starts running, and I hit him again. And I got chicken squawking and I got egg yolk hang in there. And dad hears the commotion comes out. There he goes. And then he spoke to me about busting eggs. And uh- that was not a good conversation. So I hated that rooster finally ended up in a dumpling pot. And it was happy day for me. But, but I didn't like that. But then one time, we had an old timey septic system, we didn't have the aerobic system and that old ground where we lived was really not suitable wasn't very sandy. And so we were always having trouble with that thing and dad called a guy to have the septic tank pumped out and the guys they couldn't get there and we were having problems and he he said "we're gonna get out here and dip this thing out." And I went: "huh? no, Surely not." And he said "yes." So he had a little trailer behind the lawn mower and some cans and garbage and rubber gloves. And so we we dipped it out. So I had some chores I wasn't particularly fond of doing. He also had me one time he raised a garden every year, every year every year. And we had this little walk behind tractor two wheeled tractor. And he- he was had a turning plow. And then one February, he said I need you to, uh- break up the garden. I said, Okay. And he said, I've got something he's going to be working on something else. And this tractors little tractor thing, had a pulley that stuck out from the engine with a notch in it. You had a rope with a wooden handle on it, you wrapped it around that and you yanked on it. And that's how you cranked it. It was cold. It was it was a cold day. And my ears were cold. And sometimes the thing would kind of backfire and that knot would slip out. Well that happened that day and it popped me on my ear. And I take- before I think about it, I take this starting rope and I'll start beating on the tractor. Just waling away, waling away. And I look up and there's my dad looking at me and he says- he said "did that help?" "Well, it helps me". He said "well get through with it and get busy". I said "Okay", but anyway, those are some of the chores there was a bunch of others he always had, I made the mistake of telling him one time I was bored. And he said, "get the hoe and come go with me to the garden. I've got a nail for your board".

One I didn't mind? Uh- I didn't mind shellin- I- we had the garden. I didn't mind shelling peas because you sat in the shade. I didn't mind picking peas too much ever- either. I didn't mind pulling the corn and that sort of thing. But that's probably the rest of them- my job was mowing and we had a push mower we had a big yard. We didn't do weed eating back then. Nobody had weed eater but we don't worry about that I guess but- I begged and begged him to buy a riding lawnmower. I said I'll mow it all the time if you buy it. When I moved out, he bought a riding lawn mower and I said I said "why you buy that a riding lawn mower now?" He said "well, I didn't need one when you were here". I said "okay."

The first thing that pops in my mind was Dad remodeling the house we tore down an old garage, and, uh my buddy who's still my best friend who's a retired attorney, ***** ******. He and I were supposed to be pulling nails out of these boards. He was gonna save from our old garage. And, uh- the Army Navy game was on, and dad being in the Army, I'm pulling for army, and it was kind of cold that day. I think he came and got us three times watching after the football game and he said "I'm not coming after you again? It's gonna be a whipping in this" and I said "Okay", so we we finished pulling nails. But yeah, I thought he was busy around the other side and couldn't see us and we would get going for a little while, and then we'd stop

Some people?

No, I- you know, I think it doesn't matter if you have the same interest and, and good people are good people. and No.

I'm trying to remember. I'm sure that happened. But I probably put it out of my mind. But, uh- it wasn't me. But I worked for a savings and loan at one point. We had branches and Trinity and everywhere. We had a radio system. A good one we could talk back and forth. We had- we had handheld units. And the boss and his a couple of his folks had were visiting some of the branches. And they had the radio in the seat. And they just left a branch, and the branch wasn't doing very well, and somebody pushed up against the button and transmitted and they were talking about the branch manager. Everybody heard, but that wasn't me.

Yeah, probably so. I'm not a big pop. You know. I'm stuck in the 60s and the 70s, I'm the Eagles and those guys, country western but but yeah, there's some, some that you should not lie. But-

Okay, let me see what you got. I mean, let me see- read- I don't hear very well. And you (Hands them the excerpt explaining the segment, walking, pages turning) mmm- yeah

Oh that's what you had a while ago. Okay, so you now, let me be sure I understand: you want me to read this out loud or do you want me to-

Read it out loud?

Okay. I've lived in Texas all my life. I was born in Titus County, and when I was five, we moved to a farm near White House which is southeast of Tyler. I liked growing up in the country. When my chores were done, I'd ride my horse, climb trees or hike down to the creek to fish or swim. One time, we tied a rope to a limb of a cypress tree, and would swing out wide over the swimming hole and drop into the water. Pretending to be Tarzan swinging on a vine. In the spring, I'd fly kites, and on summer nights, we'd catch fireflies, but we call them lightning bugs. Once in a while we'd have fights with corncobs or pine cones. In the winter, we'd build a fire in the fireplace and pop popcorn and roast peanuts and pecans. I guess I was a live wire. When I was 19, I went to work in Dallas in a Firestone Tire store. I didn't like city life, and for a long time I'd go home every chance I got. Mama would always cook my favorite food: fried okra, hoppin john, that's rice and Black Eyed Peas, and pecan pie. We had lots of good times, but going home is not the same now. After daddy died, mom sold the farm and moved to Tyler. I'd rather be living on a farm right now instead of here in the city, but my wife and kids don't understand me when I gripe about city life and talk about moving to the country. My oldest child says "Daddy, that's crazy. I'd just die if I had to live on a farm" I almost cried the first time she said that. I know Texas is changing, but I try to make sure we don't lose touch with our roots. While we may live in a city, I want my kids to have a good feeling for the land, have a sense of place, and take pride in being Texans. If they lose our ties to the land, the price of progress is too high.

You know, based on how we talk now. Talk just a second about my my grandpa *****. My dad's dad had a little farm probably 60 acres. The house had the old old truck, no indoor plumbing. And there's a story about that I'll tell you for another time. My grandpa could not he could not read. He could not write he could write his name. Worked all of his life hard. It's all he knew. He cut logs. he cut trees. And um- he, uh- he would come in and his shirt would be strict with white stripes of salt where his sweat had left. And the way he talked. it's funny, I'd pick up some of it when I'm there, then I would lose it when I would go away. But I would say things like, I could remember he said, "You know, I told John that when when he went to get that cow I'd he'p em if he needed me to he'p em him get it in the lot". And so the words they used were different. As a matter of fact, I wrote a- of course since I wrote a thing the other day that I said something to my wife, or somebody that was here. And I said- I said they stay just a second? And they left? And I said "why don't you come after a coal of fire?" And she looked at and went "what are you talking about?" Now I thought you know a lot of folks might not know this. But in the old days, in those days, in his days, all the head for heat was fireplace. And if you ran out of matches, or you couldn't afford matches, which might have been the case many times all you ur- to start to get a fire going again, the thing you did was you go down to the neighbor and ask for a coal of his fire. But you couldn't stay, you had to get the coal and get back before it went out. So they had those kinds of sayings and, and I picked up some of them, and my wife, one of one of the other ones I'll tell you and move on. Let me back up for a second and tell you about you know, and my grandfather would be one of those people that you said was- he believed the Earth was flat. didn't believe a man went on the moon. And the reason he did he'd have my dad read the Bible to him from time to time when we go down there. And he said "the Bible speaks to the four corners of the earth". And what it's talking about is north, south, east, and the west. But that's not the way he saw it. He said you can't make a circle out of a square if there's four corners. There's not a circle. So that was his rationale on that. But he was honest as the day was long. And my point in this and I wanted to say this is: while he was not educated as you would think of being educated, He could tell you when to plant, How deep to plant, Which cow is most likely to have a calf, Which cow is most likely produce the most milk. He possessed knowledge, that I don't possess that will help you live if you had to, in a different world without electricity and stuff. They had- they had some. But one of the other things and then I'll stop because there's a bunch of them, but we were talking about. Some of us were talking about where to go eat after church one day. And my dad said, I'd ask him, I said, "Dad where do you want to go", he said, "I'm kind of like a sounds mule. I'll work either side of the tongue." Now, do you have any idea what he's talking about?

My wife didn't either. Well, here's- here's the deal. When the old days when you had a wagon, and you had two mules, mules can be stubborn. And many, many times a mule would only work on the left side of the wagon tongue, and he only worked or the other one would only work when you couldn't make them switch out. wouldn't do it. But you find a new work either side, now he's easy going. And so there's, they want to know about, you know, what, old sayings? Those are a couple. And- and I don't know if these are some that my dad brought over. But his- I've written down some of his. He has a bunch of them. One of them was when I'd do something foolish, which was often. He would, he'd look at me, and he goes "Son, If you fell in the river, I'd go upstream to look for you. Because I'm gon' float the opposite way".

And he had some that- one that I have a hard time remembering, but that's really- when I would complain to him about some wrong that he would tell me two things. I said- I said "That guy is just a rat dad, he's, he's not fair". Then he said, "Hey, first of all, life's not fair. And if you want fair, you're going to have to wait till October. That's when it comes to town. Cause that's the only fair I know. And the other thing I'm going to tell you is two horses behinds have never made a horse. One of you have got to be the head and do the thinking. Is that going to be you?" And, I'll try, and that ain't always easy. But good advice. I've got a bunch if you want more but thats- my grandpa told my cousin one time, he was helping him in the garden. He thought he was doing a good thing. But he was trying to make it look nice and he's over here, Hoeing not not hoeing the row. Pa ***** looked at him and he said, "Son, you lose a crop hoeing in the corner of the garden". And I thought you know, that's good advice. It looks nice, but you're not doing anything productive. You're just piddling, and so he, uh- he was he was in many ways was a really a smart fella. And he- he was at a brush arbor meeting one time and this is my dad's story. He said he was a stout. He wasn't real tall. My dad's mom's family was 6'3-6'4. So my dad was six one, I'm about six. But Pa ***** was probably 5'10''. Maybe no more. But he was stocky and strong. And they went to this brush arbor meeting and the preacher was going on and on and on. And, uh- Pa had to go to the bathroom. So he got up and was working his way out to go I guess up behind a tree I don't know, And the preacher said, "Ah ha, there goes one that got his corn shelled." made Pa mad. Pa looked at him. He said "Tell you what feller. You come down the road a little ways. I'll shell your corn." so he was sometimes no nonsense. He told me I don't have it on me right now. He would, uh- We went to see him one time, and he's he always kept yellow handled case pocket knife. And he was sharpening it kept it razor sharp, and he was sharpening it when I got up there and he was showing me how to do it. And all. And he said, he said "Now let me tell you". That's the other way he was wise. He said "you get your mama. You see if you get you one of these knives, get your mama to put a baked potato in the oven and get it hot and when it's hot. Stick that knife in and leave it so long". forgotten how long he said "take it out, hit it a few licks, put it in cold water and do it again" and he said "it'll be set and you'll hold edge". I said, "Okay". And he said, " But let me show you" he said" you need one of these". He said, "first of all case makes a good knife". He said, "second of all, the reason you want a yellow handle case is because if you drop it in the woods, you never will find a bone handle in them leaves, you will find this yellow handle one, pretty easy". I've carried a yellow handle case for years. What my Pa ***** told me. And so, um- they- I have a life insurance lessons, and I had to go to these seminars to maintain the continue of education. And this guy was talking about investments and how the people- many people retire at poverty level and you need to diversify your portfolio and stuff, and I said- at the end of the day, I said- "You know, I have a grandfather that probably he qualifies poverty level." I said. "But let me tell you something about him. He didn't care the first thing about going to Hawaii. He didn't even want to go to Houston. I said one time we were coming back from Houston, and he and I were to see his brother and there's two things I remember about that trip I was probably 10 years old. And one of them was we just got finally got out of the Houston traffic and he said "I'm gonna tell you one thing if **** will see me he'll come to ****" or ***** he lived out of *****. He said " I ain't coming back this place". We we got to the end- to the Neches River Bridge. And when we got across the bridge. He looked over at me that notion he said "we back in the United States now son"" that's the way he saw it. But he was he was a fine fella and my dad was is as good as gold. My mom was super I've written some stories, written a lot of them I need to keep the bottle them together of things that they've done but but they they talked all together different. I mean, it was the deep south, you know, but I was very fortunate. I had um- my mother's- My mother was a ****** and she grew up in the **** area. And my grandpa ******* old place was a rock house right across from **** school. He used to raise crops where **** school sits. I don't know that that was his land. But he did that. And his name was Harold ******. I wasn't as close to him he- Pa pa was kind of a gruff- not as open as my grandpa ***** and me. We got along and all that. But he worked on- he played fiddle. Oh, he could play a fiddle. I have it I ended up with it. can't play it, but I've got it. But , uh-anyway. Well, I I like to talk I've got plenty of stories and good things. But I hope that was kind of what you were looking for on that.

You bet. Very proud of you. You know I think a lot of your mom and and the whole family. ***** was a customer at the bank. I've known for ***** for a long time actually I didn't do a lot with him he was in- with the other guy but but but he works- he's a working guy. He don't mind working, and anybody that works I respect them they just uh- are good folks. *****'s mom I've not been around too much but she's a very nice lady and times- I've been around her but but you're liking it out there. Okay. and everything? Good. Good. You didn't get home sick?

Oh yeah. yeah.

I consent to being interviewed and the audio record for the study. 

[CLEARS THROAT] Excuse me, yes. Um, I was living in [DIFFERENT COMMUNITY NAME], which is also part of [UPPER GULF COAST COUNTY NAME], and it's down here off of 59 going toward [DIFFERENT METROPLEX REGION]. Okay? I was living there. My husband was- had been sick for 25 years and was- we'd already been told that he had just a few months to live. This time. We've been told that before, but we were told this time [GIGGLES] and this time seems to be really important for everybody. So I had three months to find another place to live. The house that I had in [DIFFERENT COMMUNITY NAME] was a two story corner house. Lots of yard. Lots of work. 

[CHUCKLES] 

And I knew I wasn't going to be able to take care of it. 

So I looked for one- one level house and found one out there. But I didn't like the way it was made. I liked. I didn't like the workmanship, is what I didn't like. So they said well, "We've got one over here if you want to go to [NEIGHBORGHOOD NAME]!" [NEIGHBORHOOD NAME]. And I said, "Okay, fine." 

That's how I ended up here in [NEIGHBORHOOD NAME]. And the workmanship was so much better. It was the same house, same floor plan, etc. and so forth. But it was seemed to have a lot more pride taken in it. Okay? 

[CLEARS THROAT] Well, um, how will I describe it? Um, it's, it's not a gated community, it has never been. 

However, it is kind of isolated in some respects. By that, I mean, at one time, we only had one road that came into the neighborhood. Mhm. That was [NEIGHBORHOOD NAME] Boulevard. Then they went ahead and extended extended my street, the one that I live on [STREET NAME IN COMMUNITY], on down to some other streets, and they made another back way into it. Okay. So we now have two roads that made it not as secluded. However, the rug- the lake out there, we call it Bright- [COMMUNITY NAME] because of this large lake that was part of the frost ranch, and it's called Forster Lake. This- the lake is [PAUSE] and that like attracts fishermen and people running and people walking and children and everything. It's it's really a nice place. It's a nice place to live. Um, we are- we're not secluded enough that we aren't our crime free, but we're almost crime free. [CHUCKLES] 

And what the fourth largest city in the United States, we're pretty good here. 

Okay. And people seem to be happy living with their neighbors. And we have a very diverse neighborhood and as much as people who live here. Okay. 

Very diverse, and that's good. That's a good thing. We found that to be good. 

Sure. 

How it's changed? Well, first of all, getting a second road into. In and out, okay, really makes a big difference. We picked up more traffic and a lot of ways 

People who first came here, primarily came here to live close to the Med Center. 

Because it is a very close to the Med Center, Med Center in comparison to neighborhoods, okay? And, and, um, they used to- they came here trying to find it because they had worked closer to the south main area of of Houston. However, since then, a lot have moved away and kept their houses for rental property. So you see a lot of houses for rent, and lease, okay? Which is good and bad. Um, and I do mean that. It's good and bad. Um, the bad being a lot of times the renter's and the- the, uh, homeowners have moved away so they don't keep the property up. 

Like yard mowing and planting plants in the front yard and this type of thing. They don't do that much of that. However, and then of course, on the other hand, you do get some good people here who don't want to buy a house right this minute, 

But need a place to live.  

And so just keep an open mind is what you have to do and understand that not everybody has the same financial status. 

And our desires. That's another thought you got to keep their desires in mind too. So, um, [NEIGHBORHOOD NAME] is a good place to live for various reasons. We have a diverse community. 

The- my street out here, we have Filipino- 

-families. 

We have Hispanic families. 

We have Norwegian families. Okay, we have minute, Middle Eastern families. 

Indian and, um, what's the other? Anyway. 

Middle Eastern, I'll just put it that Middle Eastern and Asian families, and we're all on the same street. And every year when we have our lay- our neighbors night out, everybody comes and brings, uh, food. So it's kind of an international party. 

Mhm. 

Weaknesses of living in this community? Okay. Um, well, some of us. What I gonna say? Some of us drive too fast. I see that happens out here and we don't observe the stop signs. We've got several stop signs out here on [NEIGHBORHOOD NAME]. 

And, um, people do not exactly... They kind of do a rolling stop through some of these. 

Okay, and the police are very aware of that. So they show up and give us grief with a ticket. 

[CHUCKLES] But anyway, so the speeding up and down our streets is a little bit bothersome. 

But not that much. I mean, it's not enough to move. 

Okay? Um, let's see, what else would be I something that would be that we would not want to have? [PAUSE] Other than having maybe, maybe living back to some of some of these, um, somebody that's renting or leasing the house and aren't taking care of it? 

Which is the original homeowners problem. 

Not anybody else's. Okay. Um, that might be a deterrent to move in here. Um, prices on the houses have gone up greatly. 

And in as much- and what does that mean to everybody? That means that some- the homeowner may make a lot of money off the deal. But the buyer may not be getting the best deal. 

And as much as these houses are 25, 20-25 years old. 

So that in itself is is something that is a deterrent, is how much do you want to fix the house up?  

Okay? So, um, I think that's about it. 

Roles and relationships. I belong to the, uh, Garden Club. I have been a member of the, um, um. Well, let's see, I've been a member- I've always been a member of the, um, homeowners association. 

I'm not a board member, but I do attend their meetings and such and get to watch all sorts of crazy shenanigans going on- 

-out of adult people. 

Who are supposed to be very smart and very smart and very involved. 

Okay, what can I say? [GIGGLES] 

Anyway, hah, it's kind of fun to watch But what can I say? It's not a good idea. Uh, okay, I've done that. I've been involved and the, uh, neighbors night out. I've- I used to have it at my house over a year. Uh, but I backed up and thought, "Nah, we're gonna let somebody else take over this." 

And I have done so. I'm a member of the, um- I like to go up here to the swimming pool and, and swim and enjoy the pool up there. I've never been a member on the board of the swimming pool group or whatever. But, um, and another thing that I have done is we have a cancer support service here. I am not a member of the cancer support board but I am a member of the caregivers board. 

So I'm involved in that too and also the sewing group. 

Okay. 

What I do what? 

For work? 

I'm retired. 

Now what I did for work. 

Now what I do for work now is try my best not to have any work. Okay? 

But that's not true. You know how that never comes around. Um... 

What I do for work right now? Work in the yard. 

Which in the heat is not fun. Um, I work in the yard. I, um, I used to be a we're used to work for Southwestern Bell. 

AT&T and I was Communications Consultant. 

After I retired from them after many years. Um, when I retired from them, I went to work, went back and got my degree, my Bachelor's at the University of Houston downtown, and I worked as a PA for the English department. 

And, um, I'm an English, I'm an English major. Yeah, I can't, I can't add two plus two, but I can tell you how to use those words. 

Okay? And that's about it. That's about all that's going on right now.  

Well, I can tell you. 

I mean, if you want me to. 

First of all, and let me just say this, I was, um, I worked as a communications consultant for Southwestern Bell. A Communications Consultant and a service representative. Service representative was primarily in house- 

-taking phone call one after another, from a customer that needed new service, moving their service, had a repair problem had a billing problem, whatever you needed, that, you got me. 

Okay, and which was good and bad. Okay? [CHUCKLES] 

Anyway, and I did it for both residents and business customers. Made no difference. And then when I became a communications consultant, I did it for the Med Center and for Dow Chemical, and, uh, Enron, and, um, yeah, really did Enron. And, um, all these other large companies that I worked, worked with, and for. Now, what did I have to do? Sometimes I had to go out and explain to them how to use a new phone system, or what this data line system that we've just gave them for all their computers, that what it's going to do for them how it's going to save time and help them implement their computer equipment that they've got their data equipment. Uh, I did those things. Uh, I did a lot of in house, face to face meetings with customers with, with a communications job. And, uh, and then I retired and went to work for Methodist Hospital. And I worked in organ procurement and transplantation 

So worked directly with Debakey and his team. 

Okay? His team's, okay? It was really quite an interesting job. Uh, and at that time, uh, we were procuring our own organs, and somebody would have a problem, a catastrophe and have a problem happen. And we would either go and secure our own organs, or, in fact, the whole Med Center did this. Um, we would go and get the organs and come back and, and bring them back ourselves and then they were transplanted. We had- our transplant unit was the first to have a lung heart transplant, it was the first one. And, um, and we were the first one to do it. Uh, it was the man the patient was a lovely person, and, um, you just definitely wanted everything to work. And it did for a long time, but eventually he did succumb to his, um,  health situation. Okay, so that was there at Methodist. And then after Methodist, I decided I'm going to go back to school. And I did. And that was just being an old lady. And I'm telling you old. 

[CHUCKLES] Old lady in a college setting, and, and a, uh, junior, and a junior setting at that time at downtown. And, um, it was really great. I enjoyed it very much and, um, recommend it for everybody.  

What is it like? It's wonderful. Um, that- my particular job was just phenomenal! I didn't do any medical hands on because, frankly, I know nothing when it comes to medicine. 

Okay, however, I was the office manager. So I had to compile the records, and talk, uh, with talk with surgeons quite often. And also take the calls from different areas that were calling and telling us that we had we had a donor. 

Um, and then also work with, as liaison, with the patients and their patients families. Because it's you have to you call these people and they come runin' for the, for the organ that they're supposed to get. And I mean, they- they come running because- 

-that someplace most of the time, they're local, they're in a local hotel or whatever here, uh, but they come to- and everything. And it's a very anxious time for the families and such. So I would work with them and try to make it a little less anxious. 

But it is a frightening thing at times. And so you have to keep that in mind. And then sometimes I was I did not write the letters to the donors' parents and stuff, but I did type them up and see that they were sent where they need to go and a sector so that was interacting with both the donor and the recipient of the of the, uh, organs that we had there. And it's really exciting. 

It's very exciting and you feel like you're, you're working at a hospital, as large as Methodist, you almost feel like you're in high school or in college again. 

Okay? 

And everybody seems to know each other. They don't really, but it just feels it feels that way. 

Okay? So it's like one big family working, trying to get everything going- 

-in the right direction. It is! 

Oh! 

I am, too. I think that's great! 

Yeah, and, and, and just just remember that every patient is different. But that's nothing new for you. 

Hm, yes.

I do. Yes, thank you. And now as a follow up, um, what aspects of your job brought you the most joy and also, what were the biggest challenges you faced at work? 

Mhm. 

Mhm. Yeah. 

Mhm. 

Yes. 

So you have to keep that in mind when you're talking to the donors and the donors families. And, um, but all at all, it was very rewarding. And I felt very good about it.

Yes. 

Yes, that's exactly right. 

So you you get the picture. Beautiful here

Yeah, you do you have to be and for the donor, think about it. Some people think, Oh, it's a wonderful thing to donate the eyes of my son. 

Because he's just been in a car accident. And he would want that, that would that would help somebody else.

But then he, you may have a sister, or a child, okay? Who are a parent who just says, "Oh, my gosh, you've got to be kidding. No, you're not touching this. You're not touching my son!" You know, or, "You're not gonna do that with him!" So you have to be very, very careful because of the attitudes that you're- and there's nothing you can do about that. They're there.

That's right. Yeah, you just do the best you can. 

Yes, definitely. I consider myself to be an American. Yes. 

Yes. Completely agree. 

Oh yes, definitely! I've four. 

[LAUGHS]